Never Break The Rules
by deepwater1978
Summary: Handsome and tough, he had always done what needed to be done. He was supposed to be her knight in shining armour. He just never expected to be the one who needed to be saved… Ignoring swarming butterflies. Brushing off skipped heartbeats. Settling on lingering stares. Rules were never meant to be broken. What if there was a love that could break all the rules?
1. Chapter 1

_Cook's Bay, Moorea, Polynesian Islands_

For a man of few words Damon Salvatore hated silence.

Watching the waves crashed on the beach, he wished his brother was there. Stefan's chatter would make him focus.

At this point, the third hour in a four-hour shift with nothing but moonlight and dolphins in the ocean in front of the villa, Damon prayed for a three-man paramilitary attack from the water but would settle for camera-wielding paparazzi jumping out from the Tiare bush to his left.

Anything to break up the monotony.

Funny, but at one time he had thought guarding shady politicians would be more exciting than guarding the earnest ones, but the years had taught him otherwise.

The screen door behind him slid open with a gasp and a swish. The short hair on his neck prickled in warning, but he didn't turn around. It was the woman Senator Rawlings had brought. Charlotte Bassili. The smell of sweat over perfume preceded her.

"Sorry," Charlotte said, her voice gaspy and rough. "I forgot you were out here."

That was the idea, Damon thought, and stepped farther into the shadows of the balcony.

Perhaps knowing he was out here, she would have second thoughts about enjoying the view from the balcony.

But no, the woman came to lean against the railing overlooking the bay. Her robe, barely tied at her waist, looked like a dark oil spill over her body. The colour blended with her hair. The night sky behind her.

Quickly, Damon glanced away. She had been loud in that villa. Lots of Oh, Daddies.

"Is all this really necessary?" she asked, waving her hand around to indicate him and the other members of the team, silently guarding the senator and, by proximity, her. Her accent was nearly non-existent, but the alleys of Cairo clung to her vowels.

She had come into the senator's life suddenly. A friend of a friend of an aide at some political fundraiser in D.C. Damon didn't particularly like how much they didn't know about her.

Choosing not to answer, Damon scanned the edge of the cliff to his left. If Damon was lucky, Senator Rawlings' wife would come rappelling over the edge with a submachine gun and he wouldn't have to engage in this conversation.

There were days he really missed the Marine Corps.

Out of the corner of his eye Damon saw her run her fingers over the silk edge of her robe, revealing her collarbone, the gravity-defying inside curve of her breast.

"Maybe Doug sent himself the death threats, just so he could take me someplace."

Doubtful. Damon's team didn't come cheap. And Cook's Bay was a lot of effort for a woman who probably would have put on the very same show at Four Seasons in Washington, D.C.

"Does it bother you? Listening to us?" Charlotte tipped her head, her dark hair falling down her neck. "Knowing he has a wife. A family. That he is cheating? Lying?" Her eyes glowed with certain avarice. Obviously, it turned her on. The dirty illicitness of it. Of her role in it. It explained why she was putting on a show for a man twice her age, three times her weight, and with the morality of a shark.

For a moment Damon thought about telling her she was the cleanest thing in Senator Rawlings' life. That the death threats could have come from the full spectrum of extremist groups, the product of a lifetime of double dealing and lying in the name of politics.

But, lately, Rawlings was pissing off the Yetarzikstan Ba'ath party, with vocal support of the rebels.

But Damon didn't bother explaining to her, because he doubted she cared. Instead, he looked back over the ocean. The dolphins, the moonlight. Bother him? As a rule, Damon didn't get bothered.

"Charlotte?" The senator yelled from inside the door.

She shrugged, her lips twisted in coy regret.

"Duty calls," she whispered and vanished back into the villa.

The world issued an open invitation to humanity to fail itself. To be selfish and small. Mean, even evil at times. And most people, in Damon's experience, found it impossible to turn down that invitation.

The senator and his lies were just another example in a long line.

His earpiece buzzed in the split second before he heard Colin's voice. "Damon? Roy is coming up on your six. You have a visitor at HQ."

A visitor? Here?

Suddenly he thought of Giuseppe, sick and alone in that house. Too stubborn to ask for help if he needed it.

Christ.

He and Stefan should have gotten him a nurse. They had been talking about it, but Giuseppe was so stubborn and, in the end, Damon didn't know how to fight him. Or maybe he just didn't care enough.

But Stefan didn't know where Damon was, or how to find him.

No one did.

So not Giuseppe.

His diaphragm relaxed.

Roy, a thick squat man Damon had worked with for years and managed to know nothing about, came up through the shadows. They nodded at each other and Damon slipped down the path through the ferns and wild banana trees to the guesthouse, where the team had set up headquarters.

Tropical bugs hovered around the light of the guesthouse veranda. To the left of the light and the cloud of bugs stood a man sweating through an expensive white button-down shirt, his suit jacket tossed over the railing. Damon couldn't get a good look at the guy's face, because his head was bent as he rolled his sleeves.

The intricate warning system of adrenaline, his gut and the hair on the back of his neck began to buzz. Whoever this guy was, he had gone to great lengths to find Damon.

And people didn't work so hard to bring good news.

"You are here for me?" Damon asked, stepping to the edge of the light, but no farther.

"Damon Salvatore?" the man asked, peering into the shadows where Damon with his dark clothes blended into the night.

Something niggled in the back of his head. A memory. This guy wasn't a stranger. His all-American, confident-of-his-place-in-the-world looks were familiar.

"Yes," Damon answered.

"You are not an easy man to find."

Once again, that is sort of the idea. Damon cut through the bullshit. "Who are you?"

"It has been a few years," the man said with a weary smile and held out his hand. "I'm Jeremy Gilbert."

Damon felt deep ripples of recognition, memories of this guy and his sister came running from the corners where he had shoved them years ago.

Elena.

Damon shook Jeremy's hand. Last time Damon saw him Jeremy was still a school kid who took things for granted because of his father Grayson Gilbert.

But it explained how he managed to find Damon. Jeremy had all the right connections. The Gilberts were a four generation political family out of Richmond. The Kennedys without the president, the assassinations, or the sex scandals. Though there had been plenty of whispers about Grayson, Jeremy's father.

If Jeremy wanted to find someone he had enough money and power to see it done.

Interesting, Damon thought. But why him?

"What can I do for you, Jeremy?"

Jeremy sighed and braced his hands on his hips. "I…need a man of your talents."

"I'm not all that special." Damon was not in any hurry to get tangled with the Gilberts again.

"Elena has been kidnapped."

All of his internal organs recoiled at the mention of her name, and then again at the thought of her in danger.

"Or taken hostage, I'm not sure what the proper term is."

"Who has her?"

"Somali pirates. She had been working at a refugee camp in Kenya, had gotten sick, and a friend convinced her to take a vacation in Seychelles. They hired a boat for the day, and I don't know if they got off course, or if the guys on the boat were connected to the pirates—"

"They have held her for ransom?"

"Yes." Jeremy shook his head as if he realized he had been rambling and he was grateful to be shoved back on track. "Dad has been negotiating…"

Of course the Gilberts would negotiate.

"How long?"

"Three weeks."

As a rule the Somali pirates didn't hurt their hostages—it was bad for business. But three weeks was a very, very long time to be scared.

The thought of Elena held at gunpoint and mistreated rearranged him. Reduced him to some instinctual, animal level. It wasn't right and he needed to do something about it.

It had been ten years, but in his mind she was seventeen—a protected child, stepping into womanhood. Precocious and ludicrously optimistic. Her presence in a Somali village, surrounded by armed pirates, made about as much sense as that of a unicorn.

"I will pay, of course. Whatever your fee—"

"What do you need?"

Jeremy blinked at Damon's implied agreement, but then Damon had to give the man credit—he sharpened. Focused. Maybe he had outgrown that genetic asshole problem in his family.

"I have been working with a translator, Umar. Cell phone reception on their end has been a problem but Umar has a satellite phone. And I have got a pilot on the ground outside of Garoowe."

"What do you need?" Damon repeated.

"I need someone to go get her at the drop-off coordinates. I would go, but I have been advised that things could get ugly. And I need to keep this…quiet."

Of course they did. Jeremy's father was Governor of Richmond, Jeremy was making a shoe-in run for the House of Representatives.

Whatever emotional reaction thoughts of Elena created in Damon, he managed to bury under logistics.

"What is the timeline?"

"I'm supposed to get the coordinates in twelve hours. But the pirates haven't exactly been reliable."

"How has the ransom been exchanged?" Damon didn't want to carry around a briefcase of money through the tribal lands of war-torn Somalia.

"My family will transfer it to an offshore account when we get the coordinates and proof that Elena is alive and safe."

Electronic banking. Offshore accounts. The pirates have come a long way.

"How much?"

"One-point-two million."

Damon laughed, though none of this was funny. "You negotiated down from one and a half?"

Jeremy stiffened, reading insult where there was plenty. "Damon, I need you, but you have no idea what this process has been like."

Damon's esteem for the man went up another notch.

He checked his watch. It was two A.M. Damon and the team were flying out of here with the senator at eight A.M. "You have a plane standing by?"

"The family jet. I can get you as far as Mogadishu, my pilot will pick you up there and fly you to Garoowe, where they have been keeping her. Umar will meet you and take you to Elena."

"I will need the satellite number Umar is using."

Jeremy, again proving his mettle, handed him a phone. "It is programmed with the numbers of all the people we have been in contact with. As well as a timeline, as complete as I could make it with the little bit of information I have."

Damon took the phone and slipped it in his pocket. He had to finish the Rawlings job, as repugnant as it seemed.

"Have you talked to her?" Damon asked.

"Once, briefly. They had been sending photographs, but a week ago I said unless I could actually speak to her—"

"You negotiated."

"Should I have let them shoot her?"

No, Damon thought, you should have come and got me three weeks ago.

"She said she hasn't been hurt," Jeremy said. "That she was well fed. Bored, mostly. Scared."

Again, the thing with his lungs.

"We can leave in six hours," Damon said.

Jeremy sighed like he'd been holding his breath for days. "Thank you."

Accepting Gilbert gratitude was heavily ironic and oddly difficult, like swallowing a golf ball. But he managed a nod.

"You can wait here in the guesthouse. Try to get some sleep."

"We haven't discussed any payment."

"We will."

Damon was about to knock on the front door to fill Clint in on some of the changes he was going to need to make to the itinerary. But he stopped at the edge of shadow and looked over his shoulder at the golden Gilbert child. A twenty-six-year-old man now. It had been ten years.

Elena would be a woman.

Damon pushed the thought, errant and useless, away. "Why me?"

Jeremy's eyes were older and they told a story about the last ten years, and it wasn't a happy one. "We know you will keep it quiet."

Damon nearly laughed. Yes, he had proven he could keep the Gilberts' secrets.

He pushed open the door, but Jeremy's voice stopped him. "Damon. Get her and get her home and…keep her safe."

So much easier said than done with Elena Gilbert.

x x x

 _Garoowe airfield_

14 hours later

Damon slipped his sunglasses over tired gritty eyes. Clayton, the pilot, throttled down the engines and the sudden silence in the small plane echoed.

"That would be Umar," Clayton said, in his thick Australian accent. He pointed through the grimy windshield to a group of men standing around a Toyota Land Cruiser pickup that had been retrofitted with a heavy artillery machine gun in the back. Of the five men surrounding the vehicle, four of them had guns. Big ones. And calling them men was stretching it. They looked like boys playing with very serious toys.

They all wore the traditional ma'awii skirt with sweat-stained tank tops or, inexplicably, Chicago Bulls T-shirts. But Umar wore a blue double-breasted suit jacket over his red and white skirt, complete with gold buttons to go with his smug smile.

Damon wondered what hostage he had taken it from.

The translators were paid big money by the pirates to negotiate the deals between the Korean oil freighters and shipping boats that were the pirates' prime targets.

Civilians like Elena weren't usually targeted.

The phone in Damon's hand beeped and a text from Jeremy appeared on the screen.

 _Umar will take you to her._

 _Got it,_ Damon typed back before putting the phone in his pocket. Then he took another minute to check the Glock 21 in the holster under his arm and his hunting knife, a gift from Stefan he felt naked without, strapped to his ankle.

His phone buzzed again and he fished it out. This time, instead of text it was a picture. A woman, her dirt-smudged face surrounded by matted and wild brunette hair. Her brown eyes huge. Terrified and defiant at the same time.

Elena.

His reaction was an earthquake miles away, cataclysmic but distant.

 _They just sent this as proof she was okay_ , Jeremy texted. But it was the same picture they sent a week ago.

After a deep breath, Damon buried the phone back in his pocket and opened the Cessna door.

"Hey, man." Clayton put a hand over his shoulder, reading Damon's mind in the way of a fellow soldier. "Typically, the pirates don't hurt the hostages. It was why they are able to stay in business."

Damon nodded. He had been telling himself the exact same thing. But there had been that group of civilians murdered on their boat. And the old photo bothered him. So did those boys with guns. An accidental shot could kill you just as dead as a planned one.

Outside, the hot dry wind stirred the sand into the air, where it stung any exposed skin. And the tension was just as thick. He could feel the boys sizing him up, taking note of the gun under his arm. They all clutched their AKs a little tighter, tried to seem a little harder.

For the most part it worked.

Damon had gotten soft in the last ten years. Protecting dirty senators and paranoid movie stars had not put him in this kind of situation.

His whole body prickled with awareness and warning as if he had been stripped down to nerve-endings.

"Hello!" Umar greeted Damon like he was the front-desk man at a five-star resort.

"Where is Elena?"

"I will walk with you."

"She is close?"

"Enough."

The village was tiny, full of packed dirt huts cobbled together with roofs of tarps and plastic bags. Children watched him with wide eyes from dark doorways, their hands curled in their mother's clothing. Umar led him to a hut at the end of the dirt stretch crisscrossed with tire tracks. The tarp roof was an eye-searing orange. Two jerry cans of water stood near the door. There were embers of a dying fire in front, scattered pots. A knife lying in the dust.

"She is in there," Umar said, pointing to the door.

Damon scanned the area before stepping into the dark room. The boys were chewing Qat, the narcotic leaves and stems turning their teeth and lips green.

A bunch of high kids with guns. Perfect. This is what Jeremy had meant when he said things could get ugly.

Elena needed to find Elena and get the hell out of this place.

Inside, the room was cast in a strange orange glow from the sunlight coming through the tarp—it took his eyes a moment to adjust, and what he initially thought was a bedding moaned.

Elena.

Instantly, he was beside her, helping her roll to her back.

The Marine Corps basic training, the brief time in Afghanistan, it took over and his reaction to Elena and the shape she was in got buried. Put down some place crowded now with fear and outrage.

She had been beaten. Recently. Blood covered one side of her face, still oozing from a giant gash over an eye already swollen and black. The sundress she wore was filthy, bloody and torn at the low sleeve, revealing in the back of her arm a deep slice that dripped thick dark red blood. He grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket and tied it around the dirty wound.

"Elena," Damon said in a loud clear voice but she didn't open her eyes. A concussion probably. With steady hands he felt her arms and legs. No broken bones. Then he pressed her belly, there was no way of knowing if she had internal bleeding, without a CT scan. But the tissue all felt solid. She was able to move, which ruled out dangerous spinal damage. When he touched her ribs, Elena moaned. Carefully, as gently as he could he traced her ribs, not finding any broken ones. But the skin was raw and turning dark.

She had been kicked.

The outrage boiled over and all Damon could do was clench his teeth against it. There were major medical questions unanswered but he couldn't leave her lying in the dust with armed children getting stoned out front. He slid his hands under her body, and lifted her into his arms.

"Fadlun," she whimpered. Please. For a moment, stark and wild Damon wanted to tear down the hut, beat every dead-eyed teenager out there. But he swallowed the furious instinct and concentrated on what was important. Getting Elena to reliable heath care.

Outside the door, Umar stood with his band of boys. A new man was there, raw red scratches across his face. And when he looked at Elena he could hardly contain his distaste. He muttered something Damon couldn't hear, turned, and spat in the dirt.

Some of the boys laughed and the whole scene teetered on a knife's edge.

I could put a bullet in your head and the world would be a better place, Damon thought, a hair's-breadth from doing it.

Ignoring the boys, who stared at them with unfocused eyes, Damon walked toward the plane, which Clayton had fired up the minute Damon had stepped out of the hut.

A hundred meters, he thought.

"There was a situation," Umar said as he jogged to catch up to Damon.

Fifty meters. He could see Clayton's features through the dusty windshield of the Cessna.

"The man with the scratches on his face?" Damon had no doubt that Elena had done it.

Almost there.

"When it came time for Yeri to separate the women, they fought him."

Good for them. "Where is the other woman?"

"Taken to Mogadishu, where her family will pick her up."

Damon didn't believe Umar for a minute, but any further conversation with these criminal bastards was a waste of time. And Elena was his priority.

Under his boots the sand turned to the asphalt of the short runway and Clayton reached across the cockpit and opened the rear cargo door as they approached the plane.

"We are done?" Damon said to Umar.

Umar smiled, revealing gold incisors and molars. "All is satisfactory. Yes?"

If I ever see you again, Damon thought, I will make you choke on those teeth.

Instead of saying that aloud, he nodded a curt affirmative and turned his back on the translator.

"Is she all right?" Clayton asked.

"Unconscious," Damon said, sliding her into the cargo area of the small plane. He made a pillow for her head and surrounded her with the blankets they had brought.

"Holy shit," Clayton said when he got a look at her.

Damon felt very keenly the guns behind him. The old Browning in the back of that truck could bring down the plane, kill all of them.

Quickly, Damon climbed into the cramped cargo area with Elena and shut the door.

"Get us the hell out of here," he said.

Rattling down the runway clearly caused her some pain and he did everything he could to cushion her, protect her. But it wasn't enough.

Violently, he dug the first aid kit from beneath the pilot's seat. It popped open under his rough hands, gauze unravelling across the metal floor of the plane.

They had touched her. Hit her. Kicked her. Terrorized her.

Elena.

The thought was a hot wire in the centre of his brain. His uselessness ached.

The plane lifted and bounced onto the air, banking in a hard right.

"We need to make a stop in Nairobi," Damon said.

"That is where I'm headed. We have just enough petrol to get there."

It was a three-hour flight, but the closest reliable medical facility.

Damon pulled his phone out and called Jeremy.

"Is she all right?" Jeremy asked before the first ring had stopped.

"She has been beaten," Damon said, looking out the window down at that technical truck with the guns and boys—the symbol of a country out of control. "She is unconscious, probably has a concussion, maybe cracked ribs. We are heading to Wilson Airport in Nairobi; have a doctor meet us there."

Damon hung up and started opening the small packets of alcohol wipes to try to clean Elena's face. He would need about thirty for the blood alone.

And in truth, there was nothing he could do to clean this up. Nothing.

"Damn," Damon growled, and unable to stop it, unable to hold it back anymore, he took aim at the passenger seat in front of him and punched it. Hard. The plastic seat cracking against his knuckles. "Damn. Damn. Damn."

"Oy, mate," Clayton snapped. "That is my plane you are punching."

Right. A dozen deep breaths and Damon brought himself back under control. He opened his aching fist. Alcohol swabs. Clean Elena up. Do what he could to make this go away.

But when he turned to her, Elena was staring at him from the one wide brown eye that could open.

His heart kicked hard against his ribs as if seeking its freedom and he couldn't breathe for the obscene pleasure of her being alive and awake.

And near.

Tears gathered against her eyelashes, pooling in the corner of her eye and dripping down the side of her nose. Tears leaked out from under the purple swollen lid of her other eye. And her body, dirty and battered and bloody, began to shake.

"You are okay," Damon told her, leaning in close to her ear so she could hear him over the engine noise. He placed a hand at the top of her head, the other at her shoulder. A hug of sorts. "You are out. You are safe. Everything is going to be fine."

Damon wondered if in her shock and the long stretch of years between them, she would recognize him. And if she did, he hoped it didn't cause her any more pain. She had enough on her plate.

But her fingers, the nails broken and jagged and dirty and, Damon was pleased to note, rimmed with blood—hopefully Yeri's—twisted into the sleeve of his grey T-shirt.

"Damon?" He barely caught her whisper over the sound of the plane, but he nodded.

"It is me, Elena," he said, wiping the tears and blood from her face, while her eyes slowly shut and she slid back into sleep. "I got you."


	2. Chapter 2

_The Nairobi Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya_

10 hours later

Exhausted, Damon stood in the doorway and watched Elena sleeping on the small single bed of her private room in the Nairobi Hospital. Thank God for money, Damon thought, taking a sip of the super-sweet chai from the cafeteria. Gilbert money had greased a lot of wheels in the last forty-eight hours.

He rubbed his eyes, too wired to sleep, too exhausted to be of much use. His knee throbbed, and he reached down to rub the ache. It had been a long time since the old wound had bothered him, but it had also been a long time since he had crouched for three hours in the back of a plane.

"Hey!" Jeremy stood from his chair on the other side of the bed near the lamp where the light was better for him to work. "Sit down, man. I…forgot about your leg. The doctor won't clear her to fly for another," Jeremy checked his watch, "twenty-one hours, you should sleep while you can."

"I could say the same about you," Damon said, waving him back down. There were chairs in the hallway for him.

Reluctant, Jeremy sat. The guy had been working non-stop, greasing those wheels. As a logistics man, Damon had to admit, Jeremy was good.

"There is still a lot of work to do," Jeremy said, looking down at his phone. "She doesn't have any ID. Keys. Phone. I just want to make things as smooth as possible for her when we get back to Richmond."

Damon nodded, although Jeremy wasn't watching. In the hallway someone dropped a metal tray and a man yelled in Swahili.

Elena on the bed flinched, rattling her IV tubes. She had been severely dehydrated when they arrived. That combined with the concussion had made the young Kenyan doctor insist she not travel for at least twenty-four hours. That was three hours ago. "What…..?" Damon stopped, it wasn't any of his business. He even shook his head to remind himself of that. Took a sip of tea.

"Did you say something?" Jeremy asked.

Damn it. He was tired and he was involved. And there were twenty-one hours that needed to be filled with something other than staring at a wall and going out of his mind.

Hospitals were not his favourite places.

"What was she doing over there?" Damon asked.

"She spent most of the last year in Kenya. An aid worker in a Dadaab refugee camp."

"A year?"

"We have—the family—we have been trying to convince her to stay home. That with our money and connections she could do more good from the States than passing out rice in the camps."

Somehow Damon imagined Elena doing more than passing out rice, but he kept his mouth shut.

"She didn't agree?"

Jeremy's smile was fond but weary. "You remember her well, I guess."

Blue swimsuit straps slipping down tanned shoulders.

Yes. He remembered her.

On the bed, Elena began to stir, saving him from his memories.

She had been cleaned up, her dress exchanged for a pale yellow hospital gown. But blood and dirt were still smeared along her hairline. Against her skin the black stitches were thick and ugly.

"April," she murmured, kicking off the blankets like she was about to get up.

Jeremy stood, his exhausted face creased with worry. Elena had regained consciousness briefly when they arrived, but had been mostly confused, which the doctor had said was due to the concussion.

Her good eye popped open, startling both of them. "Where is April?" she said in a strong, clear voice, seemingly ready to charge out of this bed to get her friend. This woman…she would have been a hell of a Marine. Fierce. Strong. Loyal. Smart. Like General Mattis said, "No better friend, no worse enemy."

Mattis could have been talking about her.

"I'm trying to find her," Jeremy said, approaching the bed.

Damon was a big man and he took up a lot of space so he turned aside. Trying to give them as much privacy as he could.

You should leave, he told himself. The job is over. There is no reason to stay.

He was highly attuned to when he was in the way, and he was absolutely in the way now. He had done the messy part, the thing he was good for.

It is time for you to go.

"Jeremy," Elena whispered.

"Hey," Jeremy whispered back. Damon could hear the smile in his voice. "There you are."

Out of the corner of his eyes Damon watched as Elena lifted her arm, reaching for her brother, and Jeremy bent over the bed, smiling at his sister, despite the tears on both their faces.

Damon was good at watching family from the corner of his eyes. His own. The ones he guarded.

But watching the Gilberts, he had to look away, out the window to the black night, the shadows of palm trees.

"I'm so sorry," she cried. "I'm so sorry—"

"No," Jeremy said, fiercely. "No. Don't even say it. You are my sister and you are safe. That is all that matters. That is everything."

"Don't you have a campaign to run?" she asked.

"Like any of that is as important as you," Jeremy said.

Damon could hear the sheets rustling and imagined her shaking her head. He closed his eyes, wishing he were anywhere but here.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Shh, Elena," Jeremy whispered. "Shhh, you need to rest. Get better, so we can get you home."

"Damon?'

Damon jerked, surprised to hear her ask for him; he glanced at Jeremy, who quietly backed away.

A wrinkle appeared under the stitches on her forehead and her eye filled with tears again. "Damon." Her voice cracked, thready and thin, as if just remembering what kind of hell he had pulled her from.

Hours ago, when they got to the hospital Elena wouldn't release him and he had let her cling to him.

Now Damon started to reach for her, but stopped. Despite all they had been through in the last day, it didn't seem right. He couldn't quite forget her as a seventeen-year-old kid breathing the rarified air of an American princess. Untouchable on so many levels. Every level, really.

He stepped back from the bed and crossed his arms over his chest so he wouldn't brush the hair from her forehead.

"It is me."

There was no room between them for words of comfort now so he fell back to a familiar position. His job. And the distance required to do it well.

"Do you know where you are?" he whispered. Her eye was clear; as it glanced around, there was no confusion.

"A hospital. Nairobi?"

Smart girl. Damon bit back a smile. "Any idea what day it is?"

Elena blinked and shook her head, but then winced at the motion. "I was in that camp for three weeks. It is August, right?"

"That is right. The fifth."

Her eye fluttered shut but she struggled to open it back up.

"It is okay," Damon told her. He dropped a finger to touch the long dark brown hair that hung over the side of the pillow. Elena couldn't know. Couldn't feel it. Her hair was still matted, crusted with Somali dust. They needed to get that off of her. "Go to sleep," he told her. "You will be home soon."

"Don't…go."

"Where am I going? You are my ride home," he whispered and Elena smiled even as her eye slid shut. Lamp light fell across the bed, making the bruises and the stitches and the red swelling look exactly as bad as it was.

He was totally aware of every single mistake he was making. The lines he was crossing. And he told himself this was all just an anomaly. In a few days he would step off the Gilbert family jet and vanish back into his old life, his old job. His old shadows.

It would take some time, but Elena would be forgotten. Again.

"Do you have any leads on this April woman Elena was captured with?" Damon asked, lifting his fingers from Elena's hair. Idiot. Exhausted sentimental idiot.

"April Young. I know she was another aid worker and I know she is English," Jeremy said, sitting back down. The light from the lamp slashed across his face as well, and the Golden Gilbert child was looking tarnished. "I have got a lead on her family."

Damon stepped away from the bed to the doorframe and the shadows that lingered on the fringe of light. "Umar said she had been taken to Mogadishu, that her family had paid her ransom."

Jeremy made a distracted assenting noise and leaned back in the chair, his tie pulled loose, his sleeves rolled up. He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing at the guesthouse in Moorea. It seemed like a week ago.

"Sadly, we have bigger problems."

Damon would have laughed. But life had taught him well. Things could always get worse.

"I have to leave once we get to Richmond," Jeremy said. "So I need you to take her to her doctor's appointment, and afterward take her to her apartment. I will meet you as soon as I'm able."

"You are leaving her?" Damon asked, startled and angry at the idea.

"I will get back as soon as I can."

Seemed cold to Damon, and he was pretty much the expert on cold. But the frigid inner workings of the Gilbert family were not his business.

"All right," he agreed. On the bed, Elena sighed.

So much for back to regular life.

Elena couldn't be left alone, not after what she had been through. Not with a concussion and bruised ribs. She would have trouble even feeding herself.

"What exactly are the bigger problems?" Damon asked.

"My mother."

Yes. Damon laughed all the way to the chair in the hallway. Where he sat and rubbed his throbbing knee. That was worse.


	3. Chapter 3

_Richmond_

40 hours later

Elena was numb. Numb like she had been sitting on ice for the forty hours instead of flying halfway around the world.

Getting rescued by a bodyguard from her past.

It could be shock, or the concussion or pain medication. Maybe it was PTSD, although Elena had always sort of thought she was too pragmatic or too dumb to suffer from that, despite all she had seen. The Dadaab refugee camp held hope and horror in equal amounts and she had witnessed plenty of both.

But nothing seemed real. The car. Freedom. The clothes on her back. The family limo. Walking into the clinic to see her family doctor at dawn, to get tests run without waiting. A nurse brought her the prescriptions in a white bag.

The power of money and influence was a heady thing. If not surreal.

In an effort to break through the ice, to find herself in this new world she was suddenly living in, having survived pirates of all things, Elena made a list in her head.

A post-kidnapping credo of sorts.

She would never eat goat again. Ever.

Clean underwear was not to be taken for granted. It was a flat-out miracle.

The same could be said for doors. She would shut all of them.

That was as far as she had gotten.

Outside the limo, the familiar sites of Richmond flew past in a blur. Through the steel of the car and the numbness she was shrouded in, Elena could feel the frenetic energy, the noise and the smells. The lights. So many lights. As if darkness was something to be eradicated.

The opposite of Africa.

Anxiety and a low-level ache that the painkillers couldn't totally beat back began to buzz through her, taking care of the numbness, making her uncomfortable.

It had been a year since Elena had been in Richmond. And it felt as if she were being dipped in a pool of neon electricity.

Good, she thought, feeling bad is better than feeling nothing.

The black window between the driver's seat and the rest of the limo eased down and a brown bag was thrust through the hole. The ambrosial odour, the sweet scent of French fries hit the air with the power of a sledgehammer and her stomach immediately knotted.

"Stop trying to force-feed me," Elena said, not taking the bag.

With everything else, the presence of Damon Salvatore was simply indecipherable. It was baffling that Jeremy had approached Damon, after all that had happened ten years ago, and it was even more baffling that Damon had accepted the job. But Elena was grateful, absurdly grateful, that every time she had opened her eyes in the last few days, she had seen his face.

His stone cold face.

In Nairobi, at the very beginning, when the doctor had looked her over, Damon had stayed right by her side, bound to her by her fist in the hem of his shirt. The pain had been epic, the fear and shock nearly as much, and that cotton shirt warmed by his body, twisted in her grasp, was the only thing that kept her from falling to pieces.

He had sat beside her on the jet over the ocean, through the night. Waking her every three hours because of the concussion. Each time she woke, panicked and scared, worried about April, thinking she was back in that hut, Yeri's eyes watching her, Damon's voice would ease out of the darkness.

"You are okay," he had said over and over.

After they landed in Richmond, Jeremy had pressed a kiss to her forehead and told her he was trying to pull together the missing pieces of her life, before vanishing in that way he did.

Damon had taken her to the hospital and waited in the hallway while Dr Fell looked her over extensively. Damon's shadowy shoulders had been visible through the frosted glass window. And Elena had stared at those shoulders, biting her lips through the rape kit.

A very strange touchstone, and probably a dangerous one, but she cut herself some slack.

If you couldn't make bad decisions after being kidnapped, when could you, really?

Elena would have smiled at her own ridiculousness if her face hadn't been so thick and swollen.

So now, the limo stopping and lurching through Richmond traffic, all she had was a brand-new blue sling, a prescription for painkillers and some antibiotics for the infection starting in the slice in her arm.

One of the few pleasures of having been kidnapped—no luggage.

And she had Damon.

"I'm not hungry," Elena said, pushing the switch to roll up the window. Damon must have hit the lock on his side because it paused halfway, the bag and his arm still reaching into her space.

He didn't say anything, he didn't ever have to. Damon's actions were speeches of intent. Epic poems of argument. He simply held that bag towards Elena until finally she grabbed it.

"You are just as bad as the Somalis," she said.

"It is not goat," Damon answered as if he knew.

And maybe he did. Maybe Damon had been kidnapped by pirates a thousand times. Elena knew less than nothing about him, despite all her painful girlish curiosity ten years ago.

Under the smell of French fries, she caught a whiff of cheeseburger and her stomach unknotted enough to roar with excitement. Like most teenagers, fast food had been her favourite thing on the planet when she was seventeen, and in the six months Damon worked for her family he had probably seen her eat a hundred of these meals.

It was still her favourite guilty pleasure.

But it had been a year since she'd had McDonald's, her stomach would never be able to handle it. Though it would serve Damon right if she threw up all over him. Elena curled the bag closed and set it by her feet. Reintroduction to North American cuisine would have to start small.

She caught his gaze through the open window, those dark eyes missed nothing. And the quick brain behind them connected the dots.

"I'm sorry," Damon said. "Try this." He handed her an orange juice. And half a bagel. Perhaps his breakfast? She quickly calculated how she could split it. How many people she could feed if she was careful. Three? Four?

"Elena." Just that word, full of concern, and she blinked. Right. Not Africa. Richmond.

"Thank you," Elena said and took what he offered.

She sipped the orange juice, icy cold and bright, a revelation of tangy sweetness.

Orange juice was going on the credo. Orange juice every day.

She tore into the bagel like a starving woman, which, she realized, she actually was.

The pirates had fed her well, but half the time she had been unable to eat. The lingering stomach bug she had gotten in Kenya had roared back in Somalia. And off and on for three weeks, she and April had taken turns helping each other to the third-world privy.

April.

The thought of her friend, of the last time Elena had seen her, being dragged off by Aferi, her lip bleeding from the smack Yeri had given her, put her stomach back in knots. Elena had screamed and fought as best she could but Yeri, who for three weeks had watched her with ownership and hate, hit her on the head with the butt of his AK-47.

Elena touched the bandage, the stitches small bumps beneath it. The world had gone black until she had woken up in that plane with Damon.

"Damon?" Elena asked and in the front passenger seat of the car he turned toward her. "Have you heard anything from Jeremy about April?"

"Nothing new."

Damon was watching her, his eyes unreadable.

Her belly was full of being watched by men, so she stuck out her tongue and pushed the button to roll up the glass. Damon turned away as it started to rise, but not before she saw him smile.

The limo slowed and then finally stopped and Elena looked out the window to the familiar pre-war apartment building on the glamorous street of Richmond city centre. Her grandmother's apartment. Exhausted, worn to the bone, Elena felt tears prick the back of her eyes again.

Her grandmother had died years ago, but the apartment, filled with her beautiful odd things, was the next best thing.

The limo door opened and there was Damon, helping her out, his hands careful and fleeting as he touched her shoulder, her hand.

"Thank you," Elena said for the thousandth time.

Damon dipped his head in a small nod. He had told her to stop thanking him and she had told him she couldn't. Wouldn't.

Being thankful was a state of being for her. And after all that had happened, she was more thankful than ever.

The doorman, a new one since she had last been here, opened the door to the apartment building, trying hard not to stare at her face.

"You should see the other guy," Elena joked as she passed and his eyes narrowed.

"Is he the other guy?" He pointed a thick finger at Damon.

"No," she assured the doorman, comforted by his concern. His white knight efforts. Richmond men, she thought with fondness, so tribal. "He is taking care of me."

"Looks like he is doing a bang-up job." The sarcasm was unmistakable and Elena smiled to convince him.

Admittedly her smile was sort of hideous with all the bruising and she wasn't surprised when it didn't do the job.

Damon shook his head and hit the button for the elevator, dismissing the doorman. Elena remembered that about Damon, he was impossible to goad. Impossible to infuriate into action.

Calm, always so calm.

"I'm Elena," she said to the doorman. "I live on the top."

"Nice to meet you, Elena." He touched her shoulder since her arm was in a sling and she supposed she looked like a handshake might actually break her. "I'm Darnell. You need anything, don't hesitate to call."

"I will, Darnell, thank you. It seems…maybe I have misplaced my key." As well as her passport, wallet, ID, and cell phone. All the things that tied her to the twenty-first century. The world was suddenly overwhelming and as if he knew, as if he could tell, Damon was there. A solid presence behind her.

"I got you covered," Darnell said and slipped behind the front desk. He pulled out a thick envelope and handed it to her. "From your brother. He came by earlier."

Right. Jeremy again. Elena opened the envelope and everything was there. Driver's license, credit card, debit card. Cash. Key. Gratitude wiped her out. Emptied her. The reserves she had gathered from being safe and warm were gone.

"Come on," Damon murmured. "You should rest."

Elena smiled with weak thanks at Darnell and let Damon take her to the elevator.

"You should see the other guy?" Damon murmured. "You must be feeling better if you are making jokes."

"It' i either laugh or cry, Damon, and I'm tired of crying." She walked past him into the old elevator and gathered herself to say goodbye. Again. She was ready to be alone, away from the constant rub of his company. She sighed, heavy and hard. "Thank you, Damon…"

Damon stepped into the elevator with her and held out his hand for the envelope. Wordlessly Elena handed it over and he used the special key to send the elevator to the penthouse.

"What are you doing?" she asked, crowded and off balance by his nearness. She was anticipating a very long hot shower, a good wailing cry, and a nap.

And all of that was best done alone.

"I told your brother I would keep you safe. All the way."

"I doubt there will be any dangers in my grandmother's apartment," Elena said, leaning against the wall, because she was tired and hungry and dizzy.

That year, ten years ago had given Damon such unprecedented access to the Gilberts and he knew plenty of their dirty secrets.

As well as the real dangers Elena faced.

"Is there something you need to tell me?" she asked.

"Your mum." Was all Damon said.

"Mum," Elena breathed. She had been wondering when her reprieve would be over. There was no chance Miranda would have shown up at the hospital—that would have led to people asking questions. And if there was one thing Miranda hated, it was questions.

"Jeremy texted to say she is here. Waiting. He is coming as fast as he can."

A sort of resigned dread sank into her bones, like knowing she was about to hit an iceberg but unable to change course.

"I can handle my mother," Elena lied. On her best day she could handle her mother, but this was far, far from her best day. Up till now, she had managed to avoid self-pity, but the prospect of meeting with her mother was enough to make her want to fold up on the floor and wave the white flag.

His eyes, watching the elevator floor numbers creep ever upward, didn't give any indication that he heard her lie.

The elevator stopped and the doors binged open onto a penthouse apartment that was like stepping into a strange but lovely museum. Hardwood floors glowed with warmth from the sunlight falling through the big windows. The walls were covered with dark green wallpaper, and shadow box after shadow box filled with butterfly and beetle specimens. Bookcases lined the foyer, the front hallway, and the little bit that could be seen of the living room, and every shelf was filled with books and art and small lovely things of interest her grandmother had collected. Voodoo dolls sat next to perfume bottles. A framed Picasso sketch was on the wall, next to a photo of Elena as a girl, feeding ducks in Central Park. Somewhere in the room there was a small monkey skeleton.

The flocked wallpaper was starting to lift off the walls, the horsehair couches and velveteen chairs were beginning to sag, but Elena didn't care. When she was in the States, this was home. And in a changing world, she liked that home never changed.

"Elena." Her mother's Georgian drawl was accompanied by the sound of high heels hitting wood floor hard enough to dent. She was coming from the sitting room and Elena closed her eyes, gathering herself.

"We could sneak out," Damon said.

Her eyes flew open, stunned he had made a joke, but he wasn't looking at her. He was taking her coat and hanging it in the closet. Maybe she had imagined it.

And then suddenly, there was Mom. Wearing an impeccable Donna Karan suit, her hair lying convincingly about her age. Her makeup, her posture, everything perfect. Elena sometimes thought her mother was created in a lab—the perfect political wife.

Miranda Gilbert.

When magazines and newspapers ran articles about Miranda as the First Lady of Richmond, the mother of the up-and-coming public servant running for Congress—the journalists called her "a steel-tipped southern magnolia." And the accent was a fake-it-till-you-make-it phenomenon.

But the journalists talked about Miranda being the strong, civil-minded woman behind two good men.

And of course the mother of a recognized foreign aid worker. But somehow Elena didn't get the beaming-with-pride mother routine.

Even now, in this hallway after all that had happened, her mother looked at her in that familiar way. Such a disappointment, her expression said. Again.

Elena spent her girlhood cringing from that expression, and the whole of her adult life running from it.

When she was younger, she never learned, to her mother's dismay, the way of saying one thing with sugar but meaning something else full of poison. Perhaps it had been her grandmother's no-bullshit influence. But the way Miranda had talked to the world had baffled Elena, confused her, put cracks in the already weakened relationship between them.

Elena had no mind for politics, no concerns for reputation. All the things Miranda treasured, Elena renounced.

"Mum," she said. No hug between them. It was hard to remember the last time she had hugged her mother…or her mother had hugged her. Before the situation ten years ago with Damon, surely.

"You look tired."

Elena smiled, but didn't put too much work into it.

"Are you all right?" her mother asked, lifting her chin.

Elena, the black sheep of her family in every single possible way, was taller than her parents, but when her mother did that, lifted her chin and looked down her nose at her, she felt about two inches tall.

"Never better."

Miranda sniffed at the sarcasm but didn't respond. Which of course made Elena feel like a child.

"I need to lie down, Mum. Can we talk in the other room?"

"Yes…yes, of course." For the first time Elena noticed Valarie in the corner, her mother's ever-present aide. Her stomach dropped even further into her body.

Valerie carried a stack of papers and was busy tapping something into a phone.

The Gilbert political machine constantly had to be fed. Exhausted and unable to keep up with all that was happening she imagined Valarie shovelling coal into a terrible fire-breathing furnace that looked like Miranda Gilbert.

"I don't see what's so funny," Miranda said and Elena pulled her lips back into line. "Are you hungry?" Miranda asked. "I had food brought in. Some soup."

"Soup?" Amazing. This time when Elena smiled, she meant it. "Soup would be great."

"Go sit down," Miranda said. And weakened as Elena was, she had a vision, lovely and strange, of Miranda actually heating up the soup. Standing over a stove, stirring a pot.

Magically, Miranda would be wearing an apron. For her.

If her mother would actually do that…so much would be forgiven. That was how little pride Elena had left. Maybe after all that she had been through they could start fresh. Let go of some of the resentment and disappointments that lined their life together.

But then Miranda turned to Damon. "The soup is in the fridge, if you would be so kind. And then, I imagine you can go."

Well, there goes that dream, she thought. Her mother would never change.

"Mum! Damon rescued me from Somali pirates! Brought me home from halfway around the world. He is not here to make me soup—"

"It is not a problem." Damon's low masculine voice was a rumble through the room.

"Damon, don't!"

And then he was gone. Into the kitchen to make soup.

This was part of the reason why Elena left her family behind. Because it was so hard to stop taking responsibility for her mother's behaviour. Or apologizing for her attitudes. To her mother, servants were servants and anyone not a family member was a potential servant.

It wasn't a race thing, it was a privilege thing. Or maybe it was both, Elena didn't know anymore, she was suddenly so tired. Her grandmother's sagging couch and the beautiful crazy quilts Elena had helped her make when she was a kid beckoned.

She sought some refuge, wondering if after surviving kidnapping by pirates, she would be done in by her own mother.

x x x

Standing over the old stove in the galley kitchen, Damon stirred the chicken soup. The noodles whirled in a small hurricane caused by his spoon. He took his time, watching the noodles because he could hear, very clearly through the white swing door, what was happening in the living room.

"Did they hurt you?" Miranda asked, and he winced. Not her best opener, although in her defence, a warm bedside manner had never been Miranda's strong suit.

"No, actually, I fell down the stairs. Ran into a door."

Damon smiled. Jet-lagged and concussed, Elena still had it in her to go a few rounds with Miranda Gilbert.

"Jeremy led me to believe you were in shambles, but clearly if you can be sarcastic you must be feeling better."

"I'm…sorry. For the most part no. They didn't hurt me. This…this happened at the end."

"Your brother and father worked very hard to get you free," Miranda said. "It hasn't been easy."

"I don't imagine it was." Elena sounded so tired and Damon wondered, as he had a million times in the year he worked for the family, if Elena hadn't been switched at birth when she was born.

It was the only thing that made sense.

"Why were you even out there?"

"It is a vacation spot, Mum. The Seychelles are full of rich people doing what we were doing, hiring boats for a tour of the islands. We had no way of knowing the crew had connections to the pirates—"

"No, I don't suppose you did. You never do seem to see the potential mistakes until you are making them."

"I was kidnapped. I didn't go running into their arms. I didn't ask to be beaten and kicked. I can't believe you are finding a way to make this my fault."

"I'm not," Miranda replied with a heavy sigh that said Of course it is your fault. "But we need to talk about what we are going to do next."

"Next?" Elena asked. "I'm going to have some soup and take a nap."

"Your friend who was kidnapped with you—"

"April? Someone has heard from her?"

"Your brother. She is making an announcement to the English press on Monday. I'm sure she is going to mention your name. Now, in an effort to control the negative fallout to this…announcement, you are going to give a press conference here, tomorrow morning."

Damon glanced at the door. Miranda had to be kidding. Elena was in no shape for a press conference. Despite her brave face, she was running on fumes, and the real horror of all that had happened to her hadn't even set in yet. The next twenty-four hours were going to be a brutal emotional mess for her.

"You are not serious."

"I am."

"I can't…no."

"There is no no, here, Elena. Your father's approval rating is dismal, your brother's election is in three months, and should people hear of this from outside sources we will lose our chance to control the story. Your ransom was a lot of money, and people have questions. So, we have to get in front of this now, or risk Jeremy's run for Congress."

"Mum, please…"

"It will be brief. Valarie has a draft of your comments. You will read the statement, answer a few questions—"

"Questions? Mum, I have a concussion!"

"Just a few. The Times, The Wall Street Journal, and of course The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We are still waiting to hear back from the international press. Fifteen reporters, tops."

"Mum—"

"Twenty minutes, a half hour and it will be over."

"Look at my face! There is no amount of makeup that will have me look okay for cameras."

"Actually," Valarie, the assistant, spoke up. "We don't want you to look okay. In fact, the faster we do this interview, before the swelling goes down, the better. It will score a lot of points for Jeremy's campaign."

Damon would have laughed if the woman being abused in there weren't Elena.

"Valarie," Elena said. "Why are you even here?"

"Don't look at me like that, Elena" Miranda said. "It is the very least you can do for your brother, who has worked so hard to get you freed."

Ah, it took a very special woman to heap guilt onto the already battered shoulders of her daughter, particularly when she was trying to use those bruises for political gain. But Miranda was just that kind of special.

"Can't it wait? Just until I'm...I'm better. After I talk to April—maybe I can ask her not to mention me.…"

"No. Elena, it can't. You go on air with those bruises and it is all people will talk about. The way Americans are preyed upon overseas. In fact—" There was a pregnant pause. "—this might give Jeremy an angle on foreign policy. Valarie, contact CNN and see if we can get Jeremy on with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper."

"Listen," Elena said, her voice level, and he imagined her taking deep breaths, which of course must have killed her ribs. "If you politicize this, foreign agencies that count on American funds and volunteers will suffer, and my kidnapping had nothing to do with that!"

Damon hissed. He was stirring the soup too hard and it splashed up on his hand. He sucked the broth off his fist.

"You have always cared more for poor strangers a world away than you ever have for your own family." Miranda's words were a cudgel. Her guilt, her disdain, her privilege, even the racism she would swear she didn't have. They were blunt force objects she used against Elena. He imagined Elena crying. Overwhelmed. This brave, amazing woman, who had done nothing but thank him and keep it together and even managed to crack a joke or two in the last forty hours, didn't deserve this.

Enough, Damon thought. That was enough.

He poured the soup in a bowl and pushed open the door, planning how he could manage to spill it on Miranda before she did any more damage.

Miranda whirled away from the feast she was making of what was left of her daughter's strength and stared at him, her body stiffening as if he had come in waving a gun around.

She didn't like it when people witnessed the raw moments between her and her daughter. Or she hadn't when he was the bodyguard for Elena and Jeremy, and considering the way she was looking at him now, she still didn't.

Or maybe it was because once upon a time, Elena had endangered her father's campaign with her feelings for him.

Hard to say with Miranda.

Unimpressed by her manners or her reputation or all her money, Damon stared right back at her.

"I will let you get some rest," Miranda said, spreading a hand down the front of her jacket, across the buttons, as if putting together everything she had pulled apart, bit by bit. "Valarie and I will be back tomorrow morning to help you get ready. The conference is at ten."

Damon waited. Listening until the sound of heels against the floor ended with the ding of the elevator arriving.

When he turned to Elena, she was trying to push herself off the couch.

"What are you doing?" He set down the bowl of soup on a low table next to what looked like a giant beetle in amber and stepping to her side.

"What are you doing?" Elena snapped, getting to her feet. "Why are you still here? You were dismissed, remember?"

Damon followed her as she made her way into the back bedroom.

"Elena…"

"I'm leaving, Damon. I can't do this press conference. I can't deal with my mother. I have to get out of here."

"Where are you going?"

One-handed she opened drawers of a dresser tucked in the corner of the room. Wincing—she must have pulled the stitches in her arm—she threw T-shirts and underwear onto the bed.

"You are in no shape for Dabaab," Damon said, worried about what she was thinking. She was hardly rational.

Her laughter was a dry gasp. "I know."

"Then where?"

"I will stay in a hotel."

"You have a concussion, Elena. Stitches. You can't even feed yourself right now. You shouldn't be alone."

Elena paused, licked her lips, and finally looked up at him. Damon had been avoiding her eyes as best he could because they were dangerous, those eyes. He saw everything through them, her emotions, her thoughts. Grief. Hurt. Loss. Laughter.

And right now, he watched her realize she had no friends to count on in this situation.

Elena had no place to go where someone would take care of her.

Her family—even Jeremy to some extent—had abandoned her.

It was a hideous realization, for anyone.

"Where do you live?" Elena asked, lifting her chin. Damon wondered if she knew how much she looked like her mother when she did that.

"I have an apartment in the city."

"Richmond?"

Damon shook his head, not surprised that she was trying this route. She was nothing if not resourceful.

"D.C.?"

He nodded.

"Perfect. You can take me there."

"Your family is not paying me to hide you," he said. They weren't paying him anything. But the reminder that he wasn't her friend—not really—seemed to be necessary. For both of them.

"Then I will."

Damon laughed. She had been a relief worker in Africa for most of the year. That job didn't come with a liveable wage. "You need to lie down. You are getting punchy."

"My grandmother left me this apartment and all her money," Elena said. "Don't write me off, Damon. I can pay you." She blinked and he realized tears were filling her eyes. Damon glanced away—she had the right and every reason in the world to cry, but he couldn't handle it.

And he would do just about anything to make it stop.

"I know you must hate me for what happened ten years ago, but I have nowhere to turn. Nowhere. Please—"

"Stop." Damon didn't give a shit about ten years ago. He had been taught a lesson he needed to learn. It was the please, brave and defiant all at once, that ruined him. He held up his hand. "I'm serious. Lie down before you fall down and we will talk this out."

Elena collapsed onto the bed as carefully as her ribs would let her. He walked over and helped lift her legs. No one realized how much that move hurt when your ribs were bruised.

Not broken, thank God.

"You are going to help me?" Elena asked. The tears were still there so Damon focused on taking the pile of clothes and setting them on a chair. Then he grabbed the old bedspread and folded it over her body.

"We can't go to my apartment," he said, and her face fell. "It is tiny. Too small for two people." It was basically where he stayed between flights to jobs. The garage he kept his car in was bigger.

"Then where?" she asked. "I need to go someplace my family won't find me. Just until…just until I'm better. Until I know what I'm going to do next."

Keep her safe. All the way. That was what Jeremy had said and Damon's conscience was agreeing. You didn't go into the lion's den only to leave what you had saved for the vultures. In the end, the only decision was where would she be safe. All the way.

Luckily, Damon knew a place.

"I can take you somewhere no one will find you," he said.

And he could leave her there. Stefan would take care of her. Dad might even like having her around. Damon could drop her off, she could soak up the sun, heal, and go out to fight another day.

"I will pay you," Elena whispered. "Whatever you want."

Christ. She really had no one.

"I'm going to make some arrangements," he said. "You sleep. I will be back in an hour."

"Where…where are we going?"

Home. As much as he had one.

"Go to sleep, Elena. I will take care of things." Her eyelids were drooping and he resisted the urge to tuck the bedspread around her a little more carefully. That shit had to stop. It had been one thing on the plane, when she woke up terrified every twenty minutes, but now they were back to real life and his job wasn't to comfort her. It certainly wasn't to be her friend.

Damon was keeping her safe and walking away.

Meanwhile, there was a whole list of stuffs that he needed to do to get her out of town. Flights. A car rental at the airport for the half-an-hour drive to Mystic Falls. He had to call his supervisor and tell him he would need a few more days off. Just enough to see her settled.

Damon walked to the door, so he didn't see her eyes close as he left.

He didn't see her smiling.


	4. Chapter 4

In movies, when orphans had memories of long-dead mothers, they somehow remembered a smell. Which was bullshit, if you asked Damon. People made it up because they wanted to remember something besides being scared. Or alone. Because fear didn't smell good.

But when Damon felt lonely, he thought of the smell of Mystic Falls, in summer.

For some reason, it was the specific smell of missing a nameless, faceless someone.

Outside the car it was a velvet southern night. Deep and dark. Thick. Damon rolled down the window and put his hand out into it.

It was early August, so ungodly hot. But it had rained and the breeze smelled of mud and mulch and fishing with Stefan.

In the passenger seat, the phone from Jeremy buzzed and Damon grabbed it.

About damn time. He and Elena had left Richmond hours ago.

"Jeremy," Damon said in greeting.

"This is a joke, right?"

Damon should not have been surprised by Jeremy's tone, the accusation. That he was surprised, Damon could only blame on his own exhaustion and those hours in the Nairobi hospital when Jeremy had stopped seeming so much a Gilbert and more like a man.

"I'm keeping her safe, Jeremy, like you asked." He glanced in the rear-view mirror that he had situated so he could keep an eye on Elena as she slept, curled up in a ball in the backseat.

"I didn't ask you to kidnap her, Damon. There are things at play here that matter. They are important."

Elena was what was important. Everything else was bullshit. It was too bad the Gilberts never seemed to understand that.

"Where are you? My mother—"

"Jeremy," Damon interrupted. "I don't care about your mother."

"If I had known you would go rogue—"

Damon laughed. Listen to the hot shot—go rogue! "Elena was going to go to a hotel. Alone. When she realized that wouldn't work, that she couldn't care for herself and that there was no one else she could ask, she turned to me for help."

"And you were all too happy to oblige."

There was something insidious at the edges of Jeremy's voice. Something that had its roots in the events of ten years ago.

The wet swimsuit falling from her chest.

It was the low desperate manoeuvre by a low, desperate man. Damon was silent.

"I'm sorry." Jeremy sighed and Damon could actually hear the scrape of the man's body between a rock and hard place. "Things have been tense."

That wasn't Damon's problem and he didn't care and he had gotten pretty good at letting his silence say as much.

"Can I talk to her?"

"She is sleeping."

"Can you tell me where you are?"

Damon was silent, watching the trees pass by in a purple and black blur outside the car.

"I see. Can you at least keep me updated?"

"When she feels like talking to you, I imagine you will hear from her." Damon wasn't going to lie. In some ways it was satisfying to dick around with the Gilbert state of mind.

"Did you know what your mother was planning?" Damon asked.

"The press conference? No. Though, I'm not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised."

Maybe there was hope for the man yet.

"Your sister will be in touch," Damon said.

"Thanks," Jeremy said. "And about payment—"

Damon hung up, threw the phone onto the passenger seat, and picked up his personal phone. His thumb stroked the face for a moment as he considered his non-options. This…coming back to Mystic Falls, the call he needed to make, the help he was going to have to enlist, it banished the nostalgia and made him claustrophobic.

At Camp Lejeune for part of his marine training, he had once had a black bag over his head for ten hours in the back of a truck. A hostage exercise. All the physical shit required of Marines, he never had a problem with. But the night of that black bag…that was as close as he ever got to wanting to quit.

If it was claustrophobia or a panic attack, he wasn't sure, but he had frozen. He couldn't pay attention to which direction they were traveling, identifiable sounds. Smells. None of it. His whole world shrunk down to that black bag.

And the prospect of calling his family made him feel the exact same way. Frozen. Lost.

All of this was a weird reaction, he got that, disproportionately dramatic. Giuseppe was a good man. And Stefan…well, he missed Stefan, at times. Missed his chatter.

They weren't a threat or asking him to be different.

But in the end, he just couldn't convince his body of that.

x x x

Chili was supposed to push Thursday night poker at the Grill over the edge.

After all, what poker night wasn't improved by chili?

And drink specials. Dollar drafts!

The stools were full, and half the tables, but no one was eating chili. And no one was playing poker. People weren't playing darts, or even talking to one another.

When Stefan had taken over the bar from his dad, he had dreamt of making The Grill the social hub of the town. Of the county. It was going to be the place to go for fun. For dates. For Friday night hook-ups. He wanted The Grill to be a place people gathered to celebrate and commiserate.

A party, that was what Stefan wanted. Every night of the week.

What he got were three drunks at the bar.

"Doomed," Stefan muttered from behind the bar. "Poker night is just doomed."

"Talking to yourself, Stefan? First sign of lunacy," Bill Forbes commented, from the stool at the edge of the long mahogany bar he called home. There were days Stefan spent more time with Bill Barnes than with people he actually liked.

"You are not eating your chili." Stefan pointed to the bowl in front of Bill.

"Because it is gross."

"Bullshit."

"Why aren't you eating the chili?" Bill raised the white eyebrow that marched like one big caterpillar across his face.

Because it is gross, Stefan thought.

"Why don't you play poker?" Stefan shot back.

"I have got better things to spend my money on," Bill grumbled, taking a sip of his fourth dollar draft.

Maybe that was the problem. No one had money to waste on poker. The town was still climbing its way out of the recession.

"Why don't you ask those assholes why they are not playing poker?" Bill jerked his thumb back toward the corner where two full tables of the film crew sat under fake Tiffany lamps. They were in town taping a reality show.

The star of the show, Andie Starr, had grown up in Mystic Falls and perpetrated the one truly scandalous crime in the town's history when she shot her abusive husband in the chest, killed him in the alley right behind The Grill.

Andie was filming the last season of her reality show back in her hometown in an effort to help the local economy.

And as part of that local economy, Stefan was real grateful. Because without them it would just be Bill and his cronies at the bar.

"Because they are busy looking at their phones."

As a rule, the cast and crew of the show, when they came in, sat at the two big tables in the corner, complained about his wine selection, begrudgingly drank vodka instead—like he was forcing it down their throats—and all silently played with their phones.

They were so quiet. It was surreal.

It made Stefan feel like he had to whisper. Like his bar was a library.

According to Bill and his sometimes drinking buddies, the film crew were assholes. Stefan wasn't convinced; they were polite, quiet, practically filled the place on weekends, and didn't even notice when he raised the price of well drinks.

But one of them, a tall guy named Trevor who did something with sound on the show, sometimes drank too much and talked too loud and said things about small towns, and the people who lived in them, that Bill and his boys didn't like. Stefan didn't care for it much either, but he had seen worse behaviour.

When Trevor got mouthy, his friends in the crew quickly gathered him up, threw money on the table, and left.

"I don't think they are the poker types," Stefan said. Unless they were playing it on their phones. With one another.

Oh my God, he thought, that is probably what they are doing.

The Jaws theme on his own phone suddenly broke through "Stand by you" on the jukebox and Stefan quickly grabbed it from under the bar.

Damon.

Damon was calling.

It had been three months since he had heard from his brother. Three months of wondering if Damon had gotten hurt. Or maybe was dead. Of if he had given up on Stefan and Dad—what remained of their family—altogether.

He took a second to calm himself down, to level out his heart rate, his suddenly huffy breathing. Searching for that place in his head that he had created for these rare moments.

Cool, he told himself. Just…be cool.

Smiling, because he couldn't help it, because it was his brother and apparently he was okay, he engaged the phone. "Hey, Secret Agent Man."

There was a long pause and Stefan closed his eyes. His relationship with his brother was one long routine. A habit. Their connection was years of shtick. Damon teased him, Stefan rebuffed him. Damon attempted to crack jokes, Stefan tried not to fall on his knees in gratitude. On those rare times Damon came home for longer than twenty-four hours, Stefan created a thousand jobs, small tasks that only Damon could do in an effort to keep his brother close, to keep him around longer. Stefan let himself be needy and Damon worked until whatever alarm set in his brain told him he had to leave. And then he would, usually without a word.

It was sad and weird. But it was all Stefan had.

"I'm not a secret agent, Stefan. I'm a bodyguard."

"You say potato—" Stefan said. He turned away from Bill and the silent phone-players and leaned against the bar. "What is up, brother?"

Stefan put his finger down on the wire drain where the glasses dried. There were a hundred small circles and one by one he pressed each of his fingers down on them, until the skin around his fingernail turned pink and then white and started to sting.

He pressed harder.

"I'm coming to town."

Stefan lifted his hand and walked back toward his office, noticing Damon didn't call Mystic Falls home. Never home.

"Yeah? When?" Stefan asked, settling down deep in that cool space in his brain so he didn't sound too excited.

"I will be there in about half an hour."

Stefan glanced at the clock. Midnight.

"All right," Stefan said. "I can close the bar down early. My spare room is—"

"I'm not staying with you."

It stung. Of course it stung. But Stefan was used to it.

"Do you have the key for the boarding house?"

"You want to stay in the boarding house?" Stefan asked. That was weird even for Damon. It was cluttered and dirty and the last person to stay there had been Andie Starr right before she shot her husband.

Most people wouldn't stay there if you paid them.

"It is…..complicated."

"It usually is with you." The words slipped out, covered in irritation. And Stefan bit his lip, swearing at himself. "But I will get you the key but I don't think I have enough time to clean the place."

"I will deal with the cleaning."

"You need anything else?"

"No…thanks, Stefan."

Where other brothers had a place between them filled with love and shared memories and mutual respect, between Damon and Stefan there was only a scale. Large. Dominant. And utterly, painfully, out of balance.

Stefan struggled all the time to even the scales, he piled on these small moments where he didn't ask things like "Where the hell have you been and are you such an asshole that you can't even call?"

Damon would not let anyone get close, including Stefan.

Those things were so insignificant, so small a weight that it didn't even come close to balancing the scales.

x x x

Damon pulled into the driveway at the Salvatore boarding house.

Home. Sort of.

He turned off the car and the sudden silence pounded.

When he came to Mystic Falls, when that unnameable loneliness brought him home, he stayed with his brother. Which guaranteed he wouldn't stay long. Not that Stefan wasn't great. He was. Damon imagined he was everything a brother should be.

But living in someone else's space like that was for different men. Different people.

In the back, Elena didn't move. Except for the small lift and fall of her shoulders, she hadn't even twitched since they had gotten in the car at the airport.

His knee aching, he climbed out of the SUV he had rented and opened the back door.

As carefully as he could he lifted and pulled her from the backseat and into his arms. She weighed nothing. Terrifyingly nothing. Like her skin was full of feathers. Her bones made of air.

At some point he would go to Rebekah's shop and buy some food. All the fattening food Rebekah was growing famous for.

But first Damon planned on sleeping for a day straight. At this moment, so close to the end of this surreal trip around the world, across the country, and somehow unbelievably into his past, he felt the weight of his legs. His arms and eyelids. He had been over twenty-four hours without sleep. And the chemical cocktail of adrenaline and worry was draining out of his body, leaving him exhausted.

He hadn't been this tired since Afghanistan.

Damon spun around when he heard the front door opened. It was Stefan of course, standing in a slice of light from the open door.

Stefan had his father's blonde hair and pale complexion whereas Damon took after his mother in terms of looks and physical appearance.

"Hey, I thought I heard a car," Stefan said, with a wide smile, and he stepped away from the door. "Let me help with your bags.…" The smile dropped from his face.

"Is that a woman?" Stefan asked.

"Yeah."

"Is she…alive?"

Damon smiled. "Of course."

"What…ah…did you do?"

"I knocked her out and dragged her here, where I'm planning on chaining her to the wall near the fireplace."

Christ, he was punchy. He could see it in Stefan's eyes. That sudden bafflement quickly erased by joy, pleasure. Like a dog who realized someone he thought might hit him was actually going to throw a ball instead.

Damon looked away, uncomfortable with all that bald affection. It was like sunlight bouncing off snow—blinding.

"It is hard to know with you, Damon," Stefan said. "But I suppose if that is your thing, I will try not to turn you in to the cops."

"She is a friend," Damon said. "Who just needs a quiet place to get herself together."

"And a house which is probably haunted and near a bar is the most logical place?"

"A house near a bar that doesn't do a whole lot of business is."

"Ouch, man. It is busier than last time you were here."

Damon doubted it but he smiled and strode towards the front door. He liked the joking around, but it never lasted long. Stefan always wanted to turn serious, talk about the bar and Giuseppe. His own life and its problems, like Damon should have an opinion. A desire for involvement. And that always put Damon deeply off balance. "You need some help?" Stefan asked.

"No. I have got her." He pulled the feather and air weight of her closer. An effective barrier between him and his brother's desire for more brotherhood.

"I put some basics in the fridge. And clean sheets on the bed."

"Great. Thank you, Stefan."

Damon walked inside the house, but he could feel his brother's eyes on him from where he stood near the doorway.

"You know," Stefan said, suddenly very serious. "We are going to have to talk about this." He pointed at the woman in Damon's arms. "And Dad. We have to talk about Dad."

"Tomorrow," Damon said. "Noon."

After a second Stefan nodded and closed the front door behind him and Damon climbed up the stairs to his bedroom.

x x x

 _Where am I?_

Elena awoke with a start and a cry in a dark, hot room. Her heart pounded with fear. With adrenaline. Anger.

Yeri!

But this was not Africa. Not Somalia. She was in a bed and the smells were all wrong.

God, she had to go to the bathroom.

She had to go to the bathroom so bad, it made her whole body hurt. Or made it hurt more because she remembered in a rush why her body really hurt.

 _I have been beaten. Stabbed._

Hands shaking, she pushed the sheets off her body and tried to stand up, but only knocked a lamp on the small table next to the bed.

 _Where am I?_ Now Elena was scared. Scared and hurt and she had to pee.

"Elena?"

Damon. It all came back to her. She had asked him to take her somewhere, hide her, where her family couldn't find her. He stood in the doorway, watching her carefully, his dark eyes seeing everything. Seeing too much.

 _Oh_ , she thought, _I clearly didn't think this through._

What seemed like the perfect way to escape her family, to give herself time to heal and get her head together, left her alone and in the care of Damon Salvatore.

 _I don't even know where I am!_

"Damon," Elena said, her voice warped and cracked. "What…what time is it?"

"Nearly dawn. You okay?"

No. No.

"Can I help you to the bathroom?"

Oh God.

Her eyelids fluttered shut, overwhelmed by horror and her poor decision-making. She should have gone to a hotel. She could have hired a nurse. A stranger.

"Elena? Let me help you—"

"No!" Elena snapped. "I don't need your help going to the bathroom!"

Her snarling words fell into a well of Damon-silence. She was embarrassed and worried and considering the way her emotions were ping-ponging around the room a little frightened of herself.

Out of nowhere, tears filled her eyes again.

Good God, Elena. Get it together.

"Elena." It was just a breath, barely a whisper, and Damon was pushing open the door, his pity and sympathy softening the sharp lines of his face. "Let me help you."

He wore jeans and nothing else. All that smooth skin revealed. It was the most of his body Elena had ever seen and it was shocking to see it now. She couldn't look away from the muscle along his hip, sliding into the edge of his jeans, pulled low by the weight of his hands in his pockets. There were burn scars along his rib cage, pink taut tissue, barely visible, but there.

How unfair that he was only more handsome as a thirty-five-year-old than he had been as a twenty-five-year-old. Unfair that he was more interesting and more competent, more naked and still utterly distant.

When she was so broken and needy and tired and had to pee and couldn't get there on her own.

Elena pushed herself up from the bed, surprised that it took all her strength. But of course there Damon was. His hands, wide and warm, helping her to sit up and then stand. She shifted away from his touch, because she was angry that she needed it, wanted it. Because in this her lowest moment, she wanted to be stroked and touched and held against that naked chest and told that she would be okay.

But there was no one in her life to do it.

No one but him.

And Damon had been paid.

"I can do it myself," Elena muttered, because she had to say something. Lie if nothing else. She attempted another smile to show him she wasn't angry. Wasn't irrationally upset by his near-nudity. His presence.

Damon was silent. Of course. Walking like a gorgeous ghost beside her as she shuffled to the bathroom. His hands were loose at his sides but she knew he would catch her if she so much as wobbled.

So Elena didn't wobble. She made sure she didn't give him any reason to touch her, because that would no doubt send her right over the edge of this terrible emotional cliff she was on. Wincing, she kept her palm to the wall, feeling the cool plaster following it around a small corner to the bathroom.

"Where are we?" Elena asked, looking around the room.

"Mystic Falls."

"What is this place?"

"The Salvatore boarding house near my brother's bar."

Elena looked at him. "You have a brother?"

How…mundane. How normal. He wasn't, in fact, a military cyborg.

"I do" was all Damon said.

"And he owns a bar?"

"He does."

"What is it called?"

"The Mystic Grill."

"That is a good name for a bar."

She flicked on the light, thus ending the most inane conversation of her life.

Light fell across white porcelain sink and tiles, making the room glow like an egg. There was a big claw-foot tub in the corner and there was a shower on the other side. A very classy looking bathroom.

The mirror over the sink, across from the tub, was to be avoided at all costs. She wasn't ready for that.

"Do you—"

Damon was going to ask if she wanted help peeing. Pulling down her pants. And it was just too much. Too much Damon in her life at the moment.

"No," Elena said, and shut the door behind her, suddenly remembering her post-kidnapping credo. All doors would be shut.

It had been over three weeks since she had gone to the bathroom without knowing that a man was watching her.

It took her awhile to pull down the loose Capri pants she wore. And then situating herself over the toilet was an advanced lesson in physics and human anatomy, but she got it done.

Yay for baby steps.

Shaking, she pulled up her pants and flushed the toilet.

Damon knocked on the door and she struggled to turn the doorknob, between the slice on her arm, which stung and pulled, and her bruised ribs, which throbbed in time with her heartbeat, she was limited and apparently too slow, because the door eased open before she got the knob turned.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine." She sounded mean, nasty, but Damon didn't flinch.

"Would you like something to eat? There are some fruits. A banana?"

Her stomach clenched hard at the thought of food, which made her wince and shake her head.

"You need a painkiller?" Damon asked.

A little too much enthusiasm went into her nod and her brain splintered.

"You need to eat with it."

Elena glared at him, resentful that she was being handled—manipulated. Damon lifted his hands, shrugging; all that beautiful skin stretched taut over muscles and bone, gleaming in the light. "I don't make the rules," he said. "You have to take the pill with food."

"Fine." She was all kinds of peevish. "Give me the food."

She stood near the doorway, watching him walked towards a table where there was a tray lying there. His back was to her so she didn't bother not staring.

He had a scar near his spine and another at his shoulder, a long jagged slice. Was that all from the IED blast?

Once ten years ago when Elena had asked about his knee, the limp, he had told her it had been reconstructed. She had made a joke about being bionic but he hadn't laughed.

Now when he crossed the room with her glass of water, pain meds, and a banana he didn't limp.

"Here," he said and she took the pill, drank the water, and let him peel the banana for her.

"Thank you." Elena took a giant bite of the banana, managed to chew it and swallow although the smell turned her stomach.

She handed back half the banana and shuffled toward the bed.

"You need to eat."

"I need to sleep."

"Elena…" Damon was concerned, which at any other point in her life would have been something to marvel at, to study and ponder, perhaps frame, but at this point she didn't care. His concern was just one more thing between her and sleep.

"I'm not paying you to be a nurse, Damon," she said, using her mother's voice, and Damon was silent. Immediately she regretted it. She regretted everything that threw them into each other's orbit.

"You could leave," Elena said.

"I'm not going to leave."

"I'm not a whole lot of fun right now." Her lame attempt at a smile didn't work. Damon stared at her with his level, knowing eyes and again she wanted to cry. "I'm…I'm not very good at needing people. I'm the one who is needed and it's making…well, I'm just not myself. I'm sure you have far more important things to do than watch me sleep and walk me to the bathroom."

"I'm not going to leave."

"Damon." Elena sighed. "I want you to leave."

His silence, his stony gaze said it all. He wasn't going anywhere.

Elena ignored him and crawled back into bed.

x x x

Damon's back was never going to survive the sofa. It was just not made for his body. His feet hung off the edge. He shifted, trying to find a spot that wouldn't feel as if he were being stabbed in the back, but there was no such place.

The sofa won, he thought and sat up, the sheet falling across his lap. He ran a hand over his chest, and face, through his hair.

It had gotten hot in the night and he had thrown off his T-shirt. He sat on the uncomfortable sofa naked but for his boxers.

Through the windows in the living room there was blue sky. Bright sunlight. He checked his watch. Noon. Nearly twelve hours of sleep, give or take the few interruptions when Elena woke up crying. Or that last one at dawn when she had to go to the bathroom.

He turned, his muscles protesting, and looked towards the stairs leading to the bedrooms.

What had seemed like a great idea during their Great Escape from Richmond in the Mystic Falls sunlight struck him as ridiculous.

He had brought Elena Gilbert to a haunted house near his brother's bar.

Yes. Great plan, Damon.

And now she was having nightmares in a haunted house with only him to look out for her.

 _I want you to leave._

As much as Damon wished he could take her up on that, he couldn't leave her here in the shape she was in.

Elena needed something to keep her looking and moving forward. And a bath. She really needed a bath.

From the coffee table he grabbed the phone Jeremy had given him and sent him a text asking for April's number.

That should motivate her out of bed.

Hard to say which creaked louder as he stood, the floor, the sofa, or his own body. He took a few minutes getting his knee under him; it ached hard in the joint.

Dust filled the large boarding house, which was still and quiet like a tomb. Damon hadn't opened any windows last night, and the air sat heavy in the living room. The fireplace, situated on the interior wall facing east, had a tall mantel of birch wood with turned spindles flanking a rectangular mirror supporting a tapered hood. Once he cleaned the place, it would be comfortable house to live in.

He crossed the room to the tall windows and lifted one of them.

A thin hot breeze blew in through the window. Typical late summer in Mystic Falls. He went to the kitchen and pulled open another window.

It was still too hot.

Elena's sheets last night had been wet with her sweat. And no doubt the heat and humidity would bleed into her nightmares.

What they needed was a cross-breeze.

Finally he walked over to the front door and opened it. Only to find Stefan, holding two cups of coffee and a grease-stained paper bag.

"Hey, man, I was about to ring the bell." Stefan looked classically handsome in the harsh light of day. The years had worn away that air of perpetual juvenile delinquency but he was still good looking. Now he was unmistakably a man and Damon had never said that about his little brother.

"You said noon. Last night? You said come back at noon."

"Right." Damon realized he was staring. "Just, ah…give me a second." He was conspicuously aware of his nudity and Elena sleeping in his bedroom upstairs and he didn't want Stefan thinking what he was no doubt thinking.

"Let me get some clothes," he whispered, "and I will meet you at the veranda."

Stefan brightened at the mention of the veranda his green eyes sparkling as if they might water bomb neighbours.

Damon closed the door behind him after Stefan had walked inside the house. Beside the sofa had collapsed into last night were his jeans, which he pulled on. He left the shirt on the floor, as well as his boots, and grabbed his sunglasses from the coffee table.

Stefan was facing the backyard, his back to Damon. The edge of his blue shirt had caught some wind and billowed out from his body, only to be pressed back in as the wind twisted around them.

Stefan was wiry, and when his shirt pressed against his body, it revealed muscles people would never assume he had. Damon had known guys like him in the Corps. Wiry guys who could hump two times their weight for ten miles, drink him under the table, fight their way out of the bar, and go another ten miles.

Damon stood next to Stefan, wishing he had worn his shoes.

Wordlessly, Stefan handed him a coffee and shoved over the grease-stained bag, but Damon was more interested in coffee. Elena, however, would probably like what Stefan had brought. She used to have a sweet tooth.

"Thanks," he said.

"I haven't been here in years," Stefan said. "Forgot about the view."

The way Stefan said it, you would think they were staring at the valley of Mystic Falls. But it was just a valley. Like a million others.

"It is nothing special to you, huh?" Stefan asked, smiling as he took a sip of coffee.

"It is fine." Lying to his brother was second nature. Lying to just about everyone was second nature; it was something a kid learned quickly when you realised your father had abandoned you and your mother. Always say you are fine. Always say it was nice. Always say thank you; eat what you are given and don't complain. "I never really came up here for the view."

As a kid, right after his mother remarried, Damon had liked being alone. No one knew where he was half the time, or cared, with everything that had been going on. But as soon as Stefan was able, he started tagging along and Damon was never alone again. Especially here at the veranda.

"It is hot," Damon said, wiping sweat off his forehead. He could feel it trickling down his back.

"Rained last week, now we are soaked in humidity. August in Mystic Falls, no place like it."

"How is the bar doing?" Damon asked.

Stefan shot him a wry, laughing look. "Like you care."

"As an investor—"

"It was a loan, I paid you back."

"I'm talking about the blood, sweat, and tears I put into the place a year ago. That makes me an investor."

Stefan kicked a pebble and it bounced across the veranda, off the edge. He couldn't hide his grin; he loved it when Damon got involved in the bar. Feigned caring. "It is good. Better than it has been. Weekends are picking up. I have got some plans for the garage next door—"

"I'm sure you do."

"If you stick around long enough, I will let you help." Stefan wagged his eyebrows and Damon smiled on cue.

"I won't be here long enough to dig out the tool belt."

Stefan's smile faded and Damon felt the pinch of guilt that accompanied disappointing his brother. I'm sorry, he wanted to say. I'm sorry I'm not what you wanted. I can't give you what you need.

Something somewhere in Damon was broken.

"We are not here to talk about the bar," Stefan said, fiddling with the plastic edge of his coffee lid.

It was always strange when Stefan was cagey. Stefan, as a rule, was sort of a take-me-as-I-come kind of guy. A shit disturber. A sentimentalist. But very rarely cagey.

"We are not?"

"Don't make jokes." Stefan was angry. "It has been three months since I have heard from you. Three months."

Damon could feel Stefan's gaze. The sun didn't bother him, but his brother's eyes could burn him to the bone. "And then you show up in the middle of the night with an unconscious woman—"

"She was sleeping."

"You know, I don't ask—"

"It is better that you don't."

Stefan looked at him, really looked at him, so Damon looked back. The wisecracking shit disturber was gone, and in his place was the man Damon didn't understand. Or like. The one who wanted something…different from him. Who seemed to think Damon owed him something.

Damon shifted in his skin. This was why he didn't come home. This bullshit, right here. Demand disguised by coffee and veranda. The black bag of family. He was who he was in a vacuum. In the context of Stefan and Giuseppe, his family, he didn't know who he was supposed to be.

"Are you in trouble?"

"No more than usual." That wasn't exactly true. The Gilberts were going to be looking for their daughter and should they find her, Damon would take the brunt of that particular anger.

"You know," Stefan said, his voice low, his eyes on his hands, the half-empty coffee cup he held. "You can tell me, if you are. You can tell me—"

"I can't actually. It is not my story to tell."

"It is the girl's?"

Damon took a sip of his coffee and Stefan sighed.

"Will I be in trouble?" Stefan asked.

"When have I ever let you take the fall for me?"

"Never," Stefan said, staring down at the town he was so much a part of. "But I can hope."

Damon never knew what to say when Stefan said that crap.

"How long are you staying?" Stefan blinked up at Damon. The sun was at Damon's back, and he shifted slightly to the left so Stefan could look at him and not be blinded.

"I don't know. A few days."

"And the girl?"

"Probably a few more."

"Who is she?"

God, what a loaded question, and of all his options he picked the simplest. "A friend."

Stefan couldn't hide his surprise. Because Damon didn't have friends. Not ones he brought to Mystic Falls.

"Kind of," Damon amended, taking another sip of coffee. "That is good," he said, about the coffee because he didn't want to talk about who Elena was to him.

"Rebekah. She is ruining this whole town for anything average."

"You guys still fighting?"

"The second she stops looking down her nose at me and treats me like a businessperson, the same as her—"

"So the answer is yes?"

"Hell yes the answer is yes!" Stefan said.

Damon swore under his breath. This sustained animosity between his brother and Rebekah was getting old.

Damon looked down at the open square of his coffee cup, the brown liquid that stained the white plastic. His brother, for all that they never spent time together, knew exactly how Damon liked his coffee. The milk/sugar ratio.

It was as if Stefan was constantly calculating the worth of those little things and hoping they would add up to something—a relationship, a brotherhood, family of some kind.

 _I have given you all I can,_ Damon thought. _I don't know what else you want._

"Give me a name, at least," Stefan asked.

"Elena."

"All right. Elena. Would you like me to get some food from Rebekah's?"

"I would hate to put you in the line of fire."

"My money is as good as everyone else's and I want to."

"That would be fine. Thank you."

For a few moments they stood there, drinking their coffee, looking at the valley. And for those few moments, Damon was happy. Or maybe content. He wasn't itching his way out of his skin, and that sometimes was happy enough.

"I better get back," Damon said, and Stefan turned on him with intent, his entire body braced for something. A jump. A punch. Damon wanted to tell him to stop, to leave what had been a relatively nice moment at the veranda between two brothers alone.

But that wasn't Stefan's style.

"We should talk about Dad."

"What do we need to talk about?" Damon asked, planting his feet firmly on the ground.

"He is dying, Damon."

When his patrol was hit by that IED, the blast had lifted him up in the air and for a split second in shock, before the pain of shrapnel and the skin-burning heat and the debilitating sucker punch to all his internal organs from the pressure, he had just been weightless. Flying.

Talking about Giuseppe dying gave him that same split-second holy shit feeling in his guts. "Bullshit," Damon said, ignoring the very concept. The bottoms of his feet were burning on the ground, but he barely felt it.

"Go see him if you don't believe me."

Damon shook his head. "I won't be in town long enough."

There was pity in Stefan's eyes when he looked at him, and that was the last thing Damon needed.

"Do you need more money for him?"

"It is not money that is the problem. But—"

"Then there is nothing you need me for," Damon said, and meant it. "Thanks for the coffee. And the house."

"Damon…"

Damon didn't say anything; he just turned and walked away. Leaving his brother and his worry alone.


	5. Chapter 5

A day later, two days, a few hours, she wasn't sure, but Elena woke up to sunlight and thought of Maka.

It had been a year, but the way the sunlight fell like syrup across Elena's hand reminded her of the girl. She turned her hand, making a cup of her palm, and the sunlight syrup filled it. She spread her fingers and it slipped away.

Elena had arrived in Dadaab foolishly convinced all the reading she had done would prepare her for the size and scope of the compound, the degree of poverty, the depth of the crisis.

She had been wrong of course; it was obvious in the first ten minutes.

And while Elena had been reeling from how wrong she had been, April had gone to deal with a cholera outbreak in one of the five smaller camps that made up the whole of Dadaab. Before leaving she had given Elena very specific instructions about not letting anyone spend the night, unless they were sick, or related to someone at the clinic.

We will be overrun, April had said.

But then Maka showed up. A silent, utterly non-speaking seven-year-old girl, her name on a scrap of paper pinned to her shirt. Elena, rattled, unsettled, and desperately unsure of her ability to help in a place like Dadaab, had been happy to have the company.

When night fell on that first day, and April had sent word that she was staying on the other end of the camp, Elena tried to shoo the girl away, but then Maka had opened her mouth, revealing the reason for her silence—a severed tongue.

Elena had nearly fallen apart. If the possibility of getting on a plane that very moment had existed, she would have taken it. She would have bundled Maka up and run to the air-conditioned Western world.

But there was no waiting plane, so she made a spot for Maka on the floor beside her cot, the mosquito netting cast out around her like the edges of a puddle.

In the morning, Elena woke up and saw the girl watching the sunlight through the window of their cement building.

Maka tucked her toes out of the way as the sun approached, shifting closer and closer to the cot. Initially, Elena had been confused.

But then Maka had glanced up, smiling, her teeth so white against her dark skin, the pink of her wounded mouth.

It had been a game. Dodge the sun.

Maka stuck around that day, was present for April's return, helped stock some shelves with the supplies Elena had brought with her. And then finally fell asleep beside Elena's cot again, despite April's dire looks.

The next morning, Elena woke up ready to play the game with Maka, but the girl was gone, as well as the meagre supply of baby formula Elena had brought with her.

So now, a year later, Elena played her own games with sunlight and she could not say how long she had been watching it stretch and reach, slowly gaining more ground, like famine or disease, spreading through the room, and then when it hit critical mass, it turned back, curled up on itself, and retreated.

Shadows claimed the area left behind.

It was all a very clever analogy for Africa, she thought. Though her brain was too mushy and she kept forgetting what she was trying to beat back, sunlight or shadow. Both?

Another knock split the silence of her African Studies dissertation.

Damon.

Her eyes fluttered shut, weighted by something so heavy, so thick and encompassing, she didn't even want to think about it.

But unlike the sunlight, Damon was not retreating.

"Elena?" Damon pushed open the bedroom door.

"Leave me alone," she whispered, halfway asleep already.

"I have April's number."

Her eyes flew open and she turned her head so fast, her neck stung. Her brain pounded. He stood in the doorway, holding a cell phone. His expression blank.

"How?"

"I texted your brother."

Elena swallowed and started to push herself up in bed. Damon stepped forward as if to help but she shot him a look that backed him off. "What time is it?"

"Four. In the afternoon."

More than twelve hours of sleep. It had been years since she had slept so long.

Elena held out her hand for the phone but Damon shook his head.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"You can talk to her, but not yet." He put the phone in his pocket and picked up a plate and a glass from the floor. "You need to eat first."

"Are you bribing me?"

"Yep."

Damon stepped into the room and the entire space felt like a dollhouse with him in it. And even though there was no danger of him touching her, Elena pulled her legs closer to her body, hoping she wouldn't feel him like an electric current in the air.

He put the plate down on the bed. Toast. Buttered.

And in the glass he held out to her was orange juice.

Her mouth flooded with saliva and she took the glass with a shaking hand.

"Careful," Damon murmured and Elena used both hands like a child. Out of his pocket he fished two pills. He handed her the red one.

"The antibiotic for your arm," he said.

Elena swallowed it and washed it down with a gulp of orange juice. It lit her up, the orange juice; she felt her blood vessels expand with sugar and vitamin C.

"What is the other one?" she asked.

"Painkiller."

Elena held out her hand but Damon put it back in his pocket.

"You are kidding me."

"I want to check your arm and your head first. After that you can have it."

"I'm not paying you to be my nurse."

"You are not paying me at all. Yet."

"Can I pay you to leave me alone?"

Silent, Damon scooted around the foot of the bed. He got to the edge of the bed closest to her arm and Elena knew he was going to touch her and that made her panic in a way, down deep.

"Did you grow up here?" she asked, distracting herself from him, from what he was going to do. It didn't work. When he touched her, those broad calloused fingers against the skin of her arm, Elena gasped.

Damon stopped and looked at her, his gaze, his stillness asking if she was okay.

"It is fine," she lied. "Your hands are cold."

"Sorry," he murmured and began to peel away the bandage on her arm.

"You didn't answer my question," she said, because his dark hair was right at her shoulder, his breath gusted over her skin, across her chest where the tank top didn't cover her. "Did you grow up here?"

"Age six on."

"In this house?"

"Yes. This house belongs to Giuseppe."

"Where were you before age six?"

"New Orleans."

Hilarious. Elena had known nothing about him ten years ago, not even the slimmest details and she had considered herself in love. What a fool she had been.

Damon sucked in a breath when the bandage finally fell away.

"What?" Elena panicked at that breath, imagining infection and blood poisoning that had killed thousands of people in Dadaab. "Is it bad?"

"No." His fingers brushed over the stitches and she felt that on the inside of her skin, like the stitches were vibrating at his touch. "It is healing all right, but you may have a scar."

Scars are okay, she thought. Scars are nothing.

"Can I look at your forehead?"

There was his face suddenly, right in front of her. Inches away. That sensuous mouth, those big blue-grey eyes that when he wasn't scowling at her could be so soulful. Maybe it was the eyelashes, which were ridiculously long. And thick.

The last time Elena had been this close to him, she had thought that it looked like he had eyeliner on, that was how dense his lashes were.

And then she had made a big fat fool of herself. The memory should be enough to inspire her to look away, but she was in no danger of repeating her mistake, so she stared at him with impunity.

The laugh lines were new, or maybe they were squinting menacingly lines. Hard to say with him, but for right now, in this room, she would go with laugh lines.

Elena wanted to believe, in the heart of her that had been hung in suspended animation all these years—because being a romantic in a place like Dadaab could kill you faster than infection—she wanted to believe that there was some place, some person that made Damon smile.

"You are getting ripe, you know."

"Ripe?" Elena whispered, still thinking about laugh lines and a long time ago and the kind of woman who could make Damon smile.

"You need a bath."

Elena almost laughed. Right. No need to get carried away at the sight of some eyelashes. She put away foolish thoughts and memories and looked at the painting on the wall across from her bed.

"Check the stitches," she said, as he seemed to be waiting, his thumb against her skin, burning her.

Damon pulled the bandage off her forehead and after a moment nodded. "You can leave the bandage off this one," he said.

"Yay me," she said.

"Eat your toast and I will give you a pain pill."

"Didn't I just have one?"

"More than twelve hours ago."

Oh. Days were slipping right by her. For some reason that made her nervous.

"April?"

"After."

Grimly Elena bit into the toast, it was dry in her throat but her stomach loosened and growled its approval.

"You want more?" Damon asked, his eyebrow lifted.

"No. You going to sit there and watch me eat?"

"I am." He crossed his arms over his chest and sat on the edge of the bed.

"So who was Giuseppe?"

"My stepfather. My father left my mother when I was five."

That…that was actually personal information.

"Your mother remarried?"

"Yes."

"Was your brother…"

"Nope." Damon took the plate from her, the empty triangles of her crusts sitting among crumbs. "Stefan is Giuseppe's son."

"You and Stefan…"

"Elena," he interrupted, and held out his other hand, the Percocet in it.

"You would rather drug me than talk about your family?"

"I would rather you not be in pain."

Reaching for it, Elena winced. The ache in her ribs was deep.

"Your ribs?"

She nodded.

"Let me look," he said.

"You have looked enough. Let me have the phone."

Those dark eyes were unreadable, like cold icy river.

Despite the sting in her arm, Elena held out her hand and Damon pulled the phone from his back pocket, but didn't give it to her.

"You are pissing me off, Damon."

That made his lip lift for just a moment, not enough to cause laugh lines or melt the icy river in his eyes, but it was an emotion.

"It would be better for you if she didn't mention your name at the press conference. You want to lie low. If she mentions your name, everyone—not just your mom—will be looking for you."

"Give me the phone," Elena said, not wanting to have to make a deal with April. She just wanted to hear her friend's voice. Know she was okay, close the door on the awful nightmare they had been through.

Damon pressed call on his phone and handed it to her.

Elena grabbed it and, unable to thank him, unable to do so many things at once, just turned away, listening to the ring of the phone.

Damon stood up and made his way out the door, which he left cracked. She wished she had the strength and mobility to get out of bed and use her foot to kick it shut, but she didn't.

"Hello?" When she heard the sound of her friend's voice, it was like getting punched in the gut. Breathtaking and painful. Tears flooded Elena's eyes. "Hello? Who is this?"

"April," she breathed and then pushed her fingers to her mouth to stop herself from sobbing.

"Elena? Oh my God, Elena, is that you? Is that—"

"It is me," she whispered and the pain in her body was all such a distant echo compared to the relief that flooded her. It was cataclysmic and she felt herself losing control. Crying, laughing, grief and happiness—it was all a mess inside of her.

"When did you get out?" Elena asked.

"Five…I think five days ago."

"Same…"

"I saw…I saw him hit you with the rifle. I saw you fall and…there was blood. He was kicking you, Elena. I swear, I thought he was going to kill you." April stopped and Elena could hear her breathing. Not crying. April wasn't a crier, even when kidnapped by Somali pirates. But she did this thing, this deep panicky breathing thing, and Elena just couldn't stand to listen to her distress.

"I'm fine. I am. I have a concussion and some bruises. But I'm fine. My brother got me out."

There was movement out of the corner of her eye and she saw Damon outside the room in the hallway, sweeping the floor. Cleaning up the small mess. He could hear her, she was sure of it, but he pretended like he couldn't. And she had to look away, her body too full of everything to cram in any more gratitude.

"Where are you?" she asked April.

"London. With my parents. They…they were able to pay the ransom."

Elena knew she shouldn't ask, that April with her pride, her tough background, she wouldn't want to be asked. But for three weeks, three torturous weeks April had been sure there was no way her parents would get the money.

And there had been no way for Elena to tell her own family to ransom April with her. Elena had thought she would have to first get free herself and then turn around and ransom April, leaving her in that camp for who knows how long.

"How did they get the money?" Elena asked and there was a long pause.

"They sold the house. The car. Mum's parents' land up in Scotland."

"I will pay them back," Elena said in a rush, ashamed and grateful for her wealth all at the same time. "Just tell me how much and I will—"

"It is … it is okay, Elena. We have got it sorted. I'm being paid a lot of money to do…to do this press conference and there is talk of a book."

"April," she sighed, trying not to sound like she was judging her friend but she was. And it was awful.

"I don't have a choice, Elena," April snapped. "They sold everything, the house, furniture, all Mum's jewellery. They emptied their pensions, asked Aunt Norma for money. They…we…have nothing. Those pirates—"

"I get it," Elena rushed in to say, to relieve her friend of the extra guilt she had just saddled her with. "You need to take care of your family. It is the right thing to do."

"I'm sorry. I am."

"Can you…" Elena stared over at the corner, at the heart of cracks, knowing the answer before she even asked the question. "Can you not mention me?"

April exhaled on a loud sigh and then Elena heard a hitch. And then another one.

April was crying.

"Shhh," Elena whispered as tears ran down her cheeks and over her lips. "Shhh, April, it is okay. You do what you have to, honey. You do what you have to."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Elena, but the money, it is more than you can pay me. And my parents … they are so proud. My aunt—I have to take care of them all now."

"I know. I get it. Go ahead." Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, Elena thought. Or, more likely, her mother would handle the fallout, make it all disappear in that way she had. Elena chose to believe that instead of the other options. "When is the press conference?"

"Monday morning. Nine-thirty."

Monday morning. That would mean it would be on at three-thirty local time.

Elena was suddenly drained. Exhausted, and the pain medication made the world wobble. "I…I'm hanging up now, but I will call you again. After."

"Don't watch, Elena. Please don't watch. Don't relive it. Yeri. All of it. Don't watch."

"And not see your face?" Elena asked, and a sob tore up from her throat. "I need to see your face, April. I need to see you."

"Okay. Okay." And again, April was calming her down.

Elena whispered goodbye, feeling herself falling sideways, or at least imagining it, and suddenly there was Damon. Easing her into bed. Touching her so carefully she barely felt it.

"Press conference," she told him.

"I know."

"I want to watch."

His face was grim, all that darkness in his eyes, in his expression, and she imagined, floating away on this cloud of pain medication that the darkness was in him, trapped. Always looking for a way out.

"Okay." Damon straightened as if to leave and she grabbed his arm, missed but caught the edge of his T-shirt.

"Why did you do that?" Elena whispered. "Get April's number?"

"Because you need to care about something," he told her. He pulled her hand from his shirt and gave it a little squeeze before setting it down on the bed.

So do you, Elena thought, watching him leave.

x x x

I can do this, Elena told herself, sitting on the side of her bed. She was done with the depression. The little pity-party. It was time to pull herself out of the hole the pirates had put her in and get on with her life.

"Elena," Damon said from the doorway of the bathroom. "The water is running. You ready?"

"Yes." It was two o'clock on Monday morning and she was going to take a bath before watching the news conference. She was ready for that bath. Excited about it.

But somehow she didn't get off the bed. She couldn't.

"Why is this so hard?" she asked.

"It is the concussion," he said.

"You speak from experience?"

"I have had my bell rung a few times."

Bell rung. The words didn't come close to describing her condition. Elena felt like she had been dipped in cement. Her head weighed a thousand pounds.

"You know, I once stood down armed rebels who had taken over a Red Cross food distribution centre."

"I believe you did." His mouth wasn't smiling, but his eyes were.

"I'm really very tough."

"I know."

Damon reached for her, to help her, and that was enough catalyst to get her off her ass.

Carefully, weak and dizzy, Elena rose to her feet, heartsick and aching; she walked towards the bathroom, past him, aware of her skin and her smell and the distance between them. She wobbled at the corner and felt him reach for her, which wouldn't do. His pity was a hard thing to handle, particularly when she was so pitiful. She pulled away from him and stepped into the bathroom.

"You are going to need help," Damon said. "The tub."

"I will manage," she said and stepped into the white-tiled room. Water was filling the tub and amazingly there were bubbles.

"Did bubble bath come in your bodyguard kit?" Elena asked, touching one iridescent orb; it popped under her finger.

"Comes with the guns."

Elena smiled and turned, only to find Damon standing in the doorway. He was a man who lingered in doorways, always watching.

"I found it under the sink," he said. "It is probably twenty years old."

"Thanks, Damon. I have got it from here." Unable to take any more, she closed the door on his handsome face.

She took off the blue sling, setting it down on the closed lid of the toilet and then she tried to pull off the tank top she wore, with the thin straps and the shelf bra, but she couldn't get her right arm to work and the shirt got tangled over one of her shoulders, her head caught in a cloud of smelly white fabric.

She was about to call Damon back in when it was suddenly tugged free, the tank top pulled away, and she could feel him, his breath against her neck, his heat against the naked, fragile skin of her back.

Elena tried so hard to hold herself still that she actually shook.

 _I am a bubble,_ Elena thought. _Touch me and I will pop._

But Damon didn't touch her, he vanished as quietly as he had walked in and she felt the absence of energy, the stillness of the air that surrounded her.

She pulled off her pants, her cotton underwear, and turned toward the bathtub. Halfway there, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and she sucked in a horrified breath.

Bones pushed against her skin. Her ribs were terrible mile markers, gruesome statues covered by giant blooms of purple and yellow.

One side of her face was swollen, her cheek, her eye, the black stitches looked like Hollywood makeup for a horror film. Her hair…oh, her shaking hand touched the tangles and snarls.

It would have to be cut. She knew it was just hair, but it still hurt, the idea like a nerve-ending being severed.

She couldn't do this.

She wasn't ready for reality. She wanted to float around in a painkiller haze until she wasn't such a monster.

Elena grabbed a towel from the stack Damon had left for her and wrapped it around her thin, battered body. There had been a time in her life when being this thin would have been amazing. A success.

But all she felt now was frail. She missed her muscles and her belly. Her strong thighs that could walk her around the world. Her arms that could dig holes in the dust and clay of Kenya.

She shuffled out the bathroom door, past Damon, who held a brush in his hands, a stupefied expression tilting toward anger on his face.

"You can't give up, Elena," he said. "You will feel better when you are clean."

"I'm going back to bed," Elena said, ignoring him. Ignoring the truth in his words, the pity mingling with anger in his eyes.

"What about the press conference?"

That made her hesitate but she couldn't let him win. Didn't want to let him win. So what if she didn't see the press conference live, she could find it later online.

She got to the bed and was crawling into bed, still wearing the towel, when Damon strode towards her, startling her off balance.

"You are tougher than this, Elena," Damon said.

"No. I'm exactly this tough."

"Bullshit. You are depressed. You are not thinking clearly."

"I'm tired," Elena snapped at him. "And you are pissing me off."

"Good!"

And then suddenly, Elena was off the bed, lifted in the air. Her legs over his biceps. The towel slipped, her breast revealed, but Damon didn't look. Grim-faced, he carried her back to the bathroom. She snarled and fought as best she could, but she was weak and he subdued her like she was a kitten.

"You are getting in the bath."

"Make me," Elena snapped, trying to bite him.

She didn't expect him to, the man who had stood at her door, eyes averted, wouldn't pull a towel from her body, revealing her nudity.

But Damon did it.

The man who didn't touch her unless she was unconscious wouldn't lift her bodily into the tub, his hand centimetres from her breast, his other hand on her ass.

Her ass!

But he did.

Elena hissed and her skin sizzled and his face creased with regret.

"Too hot?"

Without thinking Elena lifted her hand and sluiced it over the water, sending a wave at him, dousing his pants, the bottom hem of his grey shirt.

For a moment Damon gaped at her. Internally, she was gaping too, at herself, but then she did it again. Harder. Soaking his shirt this time, the thin cotton clinging to the muscles of his stomach and chest. One of his arms.

Damon smiled.

"I'm mad at you, Damon. It is nothing to smile about."

"Mad is better than depressed."

"What a stupid thing to say," Elena muttered, surprised at herself. This was not her. Not any version she knew…or even sensed.

He turned off the water and in the silence she felt the first hint of embarrassment.

Damon had been nothing but kind. Honestly, very decent. Paid or not, that was exactly what he had been, decent.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"It is okay."

"Depression and irrational anger are all part of the post-kidnapping process?"

"With everything you have gone through, it is to be expected."

"Is this…Have you done this before?" she asked, marginally comforted by his words. "With your job?"

"My job is to keep people from getting kidnapped," he said. "Are you hungry?" he asked. "My brother brought some salad."

"This brother of yours, he have a name?"

"Oddly, no. Mom and Dad never named him."

That was a joke. Damon was joking with her. Elena was so shocked she couldn't even react.

"Stefan," Damon said quietly. "His name is Stefan."

"What is he like?"

Damon was silent and Elena looked over her shoulder at him, where, after moving her sling, he sat on the closed toilet seat, brush in his hand, grey T-shirt turned black by water.

"He is a good guy." He put down the brush and grabbed a bottle from the floor. "Tries hard."

"At what?"

"Everything. I am going to brush your hair," he said.

"You should just cut it."

"You want me to cut it?"

Elena was silent. What did it matter, really? The anger was popping, disappearing like the bubbles.

"Come on, under." He pressed a hand against her shoulder and she jerked sideways, away from the warmth of his touch, right into the cold enamel of the tub. She hissed.

His silence made her feel stupid. Girlish. So she sunk herself into the water, holding her breath under the bubbles, feeling her hair float around her face.

Using her toes against the far end of the tub she pushed herself back up, her hands carefully over her face. Elena could feel Damon move behind her, the heat of his breath against her shoulder, and she braced for his touch.

But either it was amazingly light or her hair was so matted she couldn't feel it.

Until a sudden tug stung her scalp.

"Sorry," Damon murmured. Elena crossed her legs and slumped forward, letting the bubbles cover her breasts, trying to give him as much access to her hair as she could. It wasn't pleasant, imagining what he was seeing. The edge of the bruises and the cut on the back of her arm, the knobs of her spine.

The pungent scent of fake flowers and too sweet vanilla filled the air and she felt something cold and slick on her head.

"What is that?"

"Conditioner. I found it with the bath soap. Should help with the tangles."

"What do you know about tangles?" She glanced back at him and his short hair.

"Believe it or not, Elena, I have known women."

"And their hair products?"

"Only their hair products, really. I'm strange that way."

"I don't—" Elena shook her head, all turned around by this strange joking version of Damon. "You are acting weird."

He was silent and the tension crept back into the room, which was good. Which was the way it should be between her and Damon. In fact, considering she was naked and he was combing her filthy, matted hair, the air in the room should be frigid and filled with glass.

"It is my brother's fault," Damon said. "He makes me think I'm funny."

"You are not," Elena said, being mean. _I'm sorry,_ she thought. _Again._

"Tell me about April." Even though he said it in a murmur, his voice echoed against the tiles. She tilted her head, looking over her shoulder at him, although she could only see his legs, the hard muscle and bone of his knee and thigh.

If she were a different woman, one who made different choices, she might lean against that knee. Rest her head on that thigh. Let his strength bear a little of her load.

Elena turned away, staring at the tarnished silver knobs, the small pipe that led up to the showerhead. For a year she had been dreaming of showers and running water and bubble baths—it was time to relax and enjoy it.

"I met April in Haiti. She worked for a mission that developed health clinics for women. My family's foundation teamed up with her, and when she headed back to Kenya last year, she asked me to join her."

"To build clinics?"

Elena nodded, and her hair pulled.

"You know this is easier if you don't move."

"Sorry."

The damp smooth skin of her knees slipped against her breasts.

"Was it bad?" Damon asked. "Dadaab?"

"It is a nightmare. One hundred and sixty thousand people living in a place built for ninety. Not enough food, not enough safety. Not enough hope. It is one long sustained scream."

But even as she said the words, she thought of the gardens that managed to flourish. The healthy babies where there had been so many dying ones. The afternoon teas Elena had organized so women could learn about AIDS and contraception, the teas that often dissolved into laughter and gossip, as any good tea should.

Children with bright white smiles and a million games to keep the boredom away.

"We built a community, or tried to. A school, a clinic." His hands moved higher up in her hair, a finger brushed her ear, the back of her neck. Her nipples hardened against her knees, little points she ignored. Her body was often so easy to ignore. "April is a nurse and she works with teachers and—"

"You? What are you?"

"Willing to work. An extra set of arms. Rich." Elena laughed as she said it. Hard to say which asset was more important; at any given time all of them were.

"I imagine you are selling yourself short."

"You do?" Elena turned towards Damon, carefully, so it didn't hurt. She saw him from the corner of her eye, his hands were wrapped in her hair, his face was relaxed. Not smiling. Not frowning. Just…quiet. All that darkness put away for the moment.

"You were always good at that," Damon told her, still brushing her hair, not quite looking at her. "And you were good at making a community."

It was such a surprise, as surprising as his jokes had been. The tenderness of his hands in her hair, these observations that made her breath stall in her chest.

Elena didn't know what to do with Damon like this, with the reaction to his words that bubbled through her chest, under her skin. So she shrank away from it. Distanced herself from anything as ambiguously threatening as physical reactions, as terrifying as attraction. Particularly to this man.

She just set the physical aside, anything she didn't want to deal with, anything that had personal ramifications, she set it aside until it no longer mattered.

Another thing she was good at.

"I suppose you are right," she said. "I was in charge of the gardens, some of the outreach stuff."

"Did you like that?"

"I liked when it worked. I liked making it work. It was a lot of problem solving."

"Gardens in the desert. I would imagine you had some problems." Elena heard the smile in his voice and it made her smile.

"Will you go back?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I was burning out. It is time to do something where the stakes aren't quite as high. My family has said I can run the foundation if I stay in the States, and there is a lot of work here that needs to be done."

"You won't miss it?"

"I imagine I will miss it every day."

Water splashed against the enamel tub and the brush made a slick swishing sound through her hair. She closed her eyes. If she tried hard enough she could imagine she was floating. Just lifting up and out of her sore and battered body and evaporating into the mist and steam that filled the room.

"A guy in my unit, Banks," Damon said, shaking her out of her thoughts. "When we would do a patrol, he would hand out seeds. All the other guys were giving these kids chocolate bars and gum. The odd pencil. But Banks handed out pumpkin seeds. Said the soil was good for pumpkins."

Elena tried to act casual, like he was a cat that would vanish if it knew how much she wanted to pet it.

"Iraq?"

Ten years ago when Damon was a bodyguard for her family, she had known he had been wounded in the service. But that was all. The Damon Salvatore enigma had been impenetrable.

Part of his utterly overwhelming charm. Or non-charm, as it was. Still, he had been catnip and she had been one very high cat.

Elena waited, her breath held, wondering if Damon would answer.

"Afghanistan."

"Was that before or after September 11?"

"October. Just after. We were one of the first units on the ground there."

"That was where you were wounded?"

"Yep. Halfway through my first tour."

"Did you…did you always want to be a Marine?"

"Maybe not always, but for a lot of years."

"Why?"

Damon was silent for so long Elena thought he wasn't going to respond, that they would hit the ceiling on what he would reveal.

But then he actually answered. "My brother was the kind of kid people picked on and then he was the kind of kid who mouthed off to the wrong people and couldn't back it up. So I did it for him."

"You liked fighting?"

"I liked protecting him. I don't know if I ever liked fighting, but I was good at it. I was big and strong and people were either scared of me or respected me. The Marines promised to take all that and turn it into something useful. I'm going to wash your hair now," he said and the fake flower smell filled the room again.

A cold gush of slime covered her hair and dripped down over her eye. She brushed it away and dropped her hand back in the warm water.

Damon worked her hair into a big pile of suds.

"You must have been so angry when you were injured."

"I was."

"Did you splash water at your nurses when they tried to give you a bath?"

His laughter was a gust against her hair. "That is nothing. I will bet Nurse Olsen still thinks of me and makes the sign of the cross."

"Where were you?"

"Bethesda—Walter Reed. For about six months."

"Did your family come visit you?"

"Once," he said. "Stefan tried to hit on Nurse Olsen." She could hear in his voice that he was smiling.

"Why is that funny?"

"Nurse Olsen had thirty years on him and six grandkids."

Bubbles popped, and whole new territories of her were revealed. Her hip, her belly button, the knob of her knees.

"What about your mum?" Elena asked, trying to corral the stockpile of bubbles into covering more of her.

"She sat by my bed and held my hand and tried not to cry. A whole lot of fuss over some burns and a knee surgery," Damon said. But she knew that wasn't true. He could have just as easily been dead as alive, the bittersweet reality of luck and timing. That was why his mother had tried not to cry.

She would have done the very same thing.

"What about your father?"

"He couldn't come in the room. Stood in the doorway. Put your head back under," he said and she slipped down and shook her hair under the water. When she came back up the bubbles in her stockpile had all disappeared. And she could see the naked pink of her legs.

"Do you miss it? The Marines?"

"Not as much as I did."

"Why didn't you go back? Re-enlist?"

"I'm broken, Elena. Bad. There was no more use for me."

That was the hard truth of Damon, the rocks he carried in his pocket. His knee was so close, Elena could touch it, offer him her lame comfort. But he would reject it, so she clutched her hands into fists and held on to herself instead.

He would never want anything like that from her. From anyone, she imagined. He was cold and hard and alone and that seemed to be the way he wanted it.

One iceberg of bubbles drifted across the water and the dark curls between her legs appeared.

 _I wonder if he can see that,_ she thought, embarrassed and yet not. This body, it was barely hers. It was just a shell she was rattling around in.

"You are done," he said. "Finish up while I get you some clothes."

Elena touched her hair, gathered the silky, conditioner-slimy lengths of it into her fist. "You did it," she whispered.

"I'm miraculous," he said. "You shouldn't fight me so hard."

He shot her one of his half-grins. Those lip quirks that were, in their sparseness, so devastating. If he were to actually smile or laugh, she would be ruined.

But then Damon was gone. And she was growing cold in a tub full of broken bubbles.


	6. Chapter 6

"Whose is this?" Elena asked from where she sat on the chair at the dining table in the kitchen. Damon's kitchen. She was stroking the red flannel edge of the plaid robe Damon had found for her to wear.

And he was watching her from the corner of his eye. He had spent a lot of hours convincing himself he didn't feel anything inappropriate for Elena Gilbert. When she was seventeen and he was in charge of her safety, he had convinced himself that his feelings were platonic.

Brotherly, even.

But there was nothing brotherly about what he felt for her now.

 _You are disgusting,_ Damon told himself, trying to bury his lust under shame. _She is hurt, vulnerable, and you can't stop staring at her._

Damon put cornbread on a plate and dished a little of the chili over it.

That was the way his mother had done it.

"Damon?"

"Yeah?"

"The robe?"

"Ahh…" Damon turned away from the oddly compelling sight of the chili served in a way he would have sworn he had forgotten about, and faced Elena. She was clean, her hair beginning to dry in places—it made the black stitches on her forehead, her bruises even more obscene.

He wasn't braced for it and he found himself scowling at her, thinking of Yeri.

The smile fled her face.

"That bad, huh?" Elena whispered, her fingers touching the bruising around her downcast eye.

"Yep." Damon set the plate on the dining table in front of her. It had been so easy to talk to her in the bathtub when she wasn't looking at him. Now, with those brown eyes following him around the room, he realized what a mistake it had been to open up to her.

Elena rolled her eyes. "Thanks. You are amazing for a woman's confidence."

"You want to pay me for compliments?"

Elena blinked at him, stunned as he was by his tone. In isolation, his varied feelings for Elena were not threatening. They weren't even all that big a burden, but in combination, his admiration stacked upon his worry, stacked upon this utterly inappropriate lust, stacked upon the fact that he liked her and had always liked her, it was just too much to carry.

Especially after that bath. His hands in her hair, the tender, vulnerable curve of her neck, her ears. The beautiful flush on her skin, those bubbles…

Under the bruises and the anger, Damon saw her beauty.

"The robe was my mother's."

"It is nice."

Damon turned back towards the kitchen counter. "You want salad?"

"Yes, please."

"A drink?"

"Water?"

It was so polite Damon wanted to smash something. Instead he got her a glass from the cupboard and filled it with tap water.

He should have bought some spring waters from the supermarket and for a minute he felt bad handing it to her, thinking as he always did that she should have better.

But Elena drained half the glass and smiled like it was spring water.

It always surprised Damon that she was so used to adapting.

She was resourceful that way, cobbling together something where there was nothing. He understood immediately why April had wanted Elena in Dadaab. If you were trying to build a community, you needed a person like Elena.

Someone who wasn't just kind but who also understood what drew people together. And could provide it, use herself as glue.

"You are staring at me," Elena said.

Damon blinked and headed across the tiled counter to get salad. "I was thinking of you playing cards with the chauffeur."

It took her a second, but then she remembered, he could see it on her face, the memory a light behind her eyes.

"Tanner?" Elena laughed. "He liked poker. Thought it was hilarious to teach me how to cheat."

"And what was your tutor's name?"

"Ms. C, that is what we called her."

"What did she teach you?"

"Besides algebra?" Elena groaned. "To knit. Or tried to anyway. I hated knitting."

The sound of the plastic salad container being ripped open under his clumsy hands was epically loud. He dumped some on a plate, grabbed a fork, and turned back to her. Elena was staring at him.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

 _No, I'm not all right. I made a stupid decision bringing you here._ "Fine."

Damon put the salad down and then, laptop in hand, sat as far as he could from her at the dining table.

"You taught me chess," Elena said after a long silence.

Damon nodded, opening his browser and clicking through to find the BBC website. This had been a bad conversation to start, there was only one place it would lead and he did not want to talk about the night—ten years ago—when she kissed him.

"You weren't very good at it," she said and he both loved and hated that teasing quality in her voice. Loved it because it meant maybe she was slipping free of this depression, hated it because…she had no business teasing him.

"I'm average at it." Only an idiot engaged with her when she was like this, so effervescent, but Damon was unable to help himself. "Who knew you would be so good?"

"Good?" Elena mocked him. "I was great. You can admit it."

"I freely admit it." And here he was, sucked in despite himself.

"Who taught you to play?" she asked.

"My dad."

"Giuseppe?"

"No, my birth father." Damon could feel her quick interest, could imagine the slack-jawed expression on her face before she looked back down at her food.

"You must have been young. Your mother remarried when you were six, right?"

"I was young, probably why I suck at it." Damon tried to make it a joke, but it fell flat.

"What was he like? Your dad."

"I barely remember him," he said.

"What happened to your father?"

"Mum said he took money from the company he was working for. Heaps of money and disappeared." How the hell had they started talking about this? Damon pointed to her food. "You need to eat."

"Damon—"

"Eat."

Damon could feel Elena looking at him and it was all he could do to stay in the room. The urge to get out of there was overwhelming. Finally she began to eat, picking her way around the edge of the bread, until she got to the chili.

"This is delicious," she said. "Who made this?"

"A woman named Rebekah. Stefan brought it over while you were sleeping."

Elena hummed in her throat one of those speculative female sounds that managed to say everything and nothing. Men had no comparative sound, it was a lack in their language. "She was one of those girlfriends you were telling me about?"

"I wasn't telling you anything about girlfriends. I was telling you I don't live in isolation."

"I have never met a man who uses conditioner."

Damon didn't have the heart to tell her that every teenage boy learns his own uses for conditioner.

And just the thought of it, of his own hand around his dick, the slick slide of water and conditioner, made his blood hum, and the temperature in the room soared.

He cleared his throat. Elena dropped her fork, only to pick it up and then put it back down again.

"Too spicy?" he asked.

"No." Elena shook her head, her colour high, and Damon wondered if she somehow knew what he had been thinking. And then, because he was right on the edge of his own control, it was her hand on his dick, her fist, the white knuckles, her pristine flesh, turning him on. Jacking him off.

Shifting, he pushed the edge of the laptop against his dick before it got any harder.

The truth was Damon had wanted her when she was seventeen and he wanted her now when she was beaten and nearly broken. And none of that felt right.

"I just… don't want to get sick. Better to go slow."

"Better to get healthy," he said. "You are pretty skinny."

Elena gaped at him and then laughed. "What a charmer."

Damon felt himself blushing. Which was weird for him. "Sorry, you just used to be…"

"Fat? Really, Damon, are you doing this?"

"You weren't fat!" Oh God, how did things go so downhill so fast?

Elena was laughing and Damon didn't know if it was at him or with him.

"It is all right, Damon, I'm just teasing you," she said. "You always were easy to tease. You are always so serious all the time."

The edges of her lips seemed to get heavier, until she didn't smile at him anymore, and then she was staring at the edge of the robe, her fingers back on the frayed flannel edge.

 _Oh Christ, here it comes,_ Damon thought.

And suddenly, as if the clock had reversed itself ten years, Damon could hear the hum of the soda machines in the hotel hallway, smell the chlorine of the pool on the other side of the door.

Elena had been cold, wet. The bright blue of her suit straps dissected the skin of her shoulders, until she had slipped them off.

Damon had been guarding the back door of the pool area while she swam and he had never expected anyone to come in through that hallway, much less her.

But she had been planning it. Working up the courage. Orchestrating things in a way he never would have given her credit for.

Perhaps the chess skill should have been a clue, but he had spent all those games simply being amazed by her. Just…soaking her in.

"I'm sorry," Elena had said in a huge rush, totally blind-siding him. "I'm sorry, but I can't stop thinking about you and I know this is probably a bad idea but I can't stop."

And then she had kissed him.

Damon never touched her, even when she had pressed her body into his, leaving a wet print against his dress shirt. Her face had been cold, her lips warm, and her whole body was trembling.

"No," he had whispered. "Elena, no…"

"I'm not a kid," she whispered back and peeled off those straps and he had watched, horrified at himself, unable to stop as the top of her suit fell away from her beautiful body.

And then Jeremy Gilbert had walked in.

The fridge kicked on and Elena jumped, as if she too had been lost in that hallway.

"I'm sorry—" Elena said.

Just as he said, "Don't."

Elena stared at him and Damon stared back. Years ago, under his direct gaze, she would have ducked her head and turned away, changed the subject. But this new Elena was too tough to be bullied by something as weak as a stare-down.

"I'm sorry I put you in that position. I'm sorry I got you fired." Elena blew out a breath as if setting down a heavy load. "I have wanted to say that for years."

"I quit, Elena. I wasn't fired. The second you left the hallway I knew what was going to happen and I told your mother I would pack my bags and be gone in an hour."

Elena blinked wide brown eyes at him. "You quit?" Damon didn't nod, he just didn't look away. "Mum said she fired you."

"Your mum is a bitch. And I imagine she wanted you to feel bad about it."

"I don't know how I could have felt worse," Elena said, bright colour on her cheeks. Finally, she looked away from him, but Damon imagined it was embarrassment more than anything. "Still, it doesn't change the fact that I cost you your job."

"I cost myself the job, Elena. I knew how you felt and I didn't shut it down." Shutting down the crush would have had some serious side effects and Damon didn't have the guts to hurt her. And never in his wildest, most uncomfortable dreams had he thought Elena would have worked up the courage to kiss him.

She would have been the daughter of the nominee for Vice President of the United States. He had been the injured former Marine who had called in every favour owed him simply to get a low position on that detail.

"My mum was sure you would go to the press," she said.

"And tell them what? A seventeen-year-old girl kissed me?"

"You could have ruined the campaign," she said. "Maybe my whole family."

And let your mother chew on your bones for the rest of your life? Damon couldn't imagine setting her up for that—it would take a far more vicious man than he could ever be.

"Your dad lost that campaign anyway." There had been rumours a year later. Something about a car accident and a young girl who wasn't his wife. Damon cleared his throat, pulling himself, both of them, away from the past. "Press conference is starting in a minute." He turned up the volume and set the laptop on the coffee table between them.

"You know, Damon…" Elena said, smiling a little. And there was something about the smile that sent warning bells ringing in his head. This wasn't the child he had rejected sitting here. This was a woman full-grown.

"You can admit it, no one is here, but you liked me. Maybe not in the way I liked you, but we were friends." She tilted her head, trying to see into him, it seemed.

Damon blinked at her, stunned. Friends? "I was an employee, hired by your family to do a job, and I failed at it. We weren't friends."

Although she stayed two feet away from him, her body close enough to touch, he sensed her pulling away, inside of herself. Locking the doors, closing the blinds, killing the lights. Turning the open sign to closed.

That was how the years—and her family, and maybe even him to some degree—had taught Elena to handle her pain.

It was in him to apologize, to do what he could to take back the hurt, but he knew it was best to leave it alone.

Damon liked her, wanted her, and if she got it into her head that they were friends or possibly more…

"Sorry," Elena breathed, "my mistake."

She glanced away, blinking, and at that moment the laptop screen buzzed to life.

The press conference was starting.

x x x

Through the roaring in her ears Elena heard the BBC announcer, the familiar sound of Andrew Harding, the BBC's Africa correspondent, introducing the press conference.

Not friends. Got it. Like an arrow through her stomach, she got it. No more brave fantasies of their affection toward each other. He was just an employee working for her father. There was nothing more between them. Got it.

How ironic, Elena thought. It had taken her three years to get over the firebomb of throwing herself at Damon, of (as she had thought then) making him lose his job. The trauma had been so complete she had been unable to look at her body, her reflection in a mirror. The problems she'd always had with food became more problematic, which of course had infuriated her mother. Miranda had put her on a dozen fad diets, none of which worked. Whatever feminine courage and self-esteem Elena had been able to cobble together to make a play for Damon had vanished.

It had taken another year to stop measuring every guy she met to Damon's standard. But even she had started to realize it was time to move on. So, four years after throwing herself at Damon, she worked up enough courage to fall head over heels in unrequited love again. Luke, a senior in her anthropology department with blond hair and sparkling eyes, had laughed at all her jokes and volunteered with her at the co-op.

Her feelings for him forced her friends to stage an intervention to explain "gay-dar" and "just friends."

After that was a string of friends with very limited benefits. It was not like she could go to a bar and find a boy—she was the daughter of the Governor of Richmond. And then she met Matt. Matt, whom she dated for a year. Matt, who wouldn't have sex unless they were married.

Seemed an awful big commitment just to get her hands on a penis.

And all of them—every single one—a friend.

But not Damon.

Damon stood and went to the fridge. "You want anything?" he asked as if all was normal.

"Can I watch this by myself?"

He turned, beer in hand. His expression blank. Unreadable. The enigmatic Damon Salvatore in full armour. "You want that?"

 _Of course I want that, you jackass, you just gutted me,_ Elena thought.

She was interrupted by the sound of a thousand cameras firing at once on the screen. Elena glanced down at the laptop in time to see April walking to the presentation table from the left.

Tall, angular, assured April. Her black hair was pulled back behind a headband. Her yellow shirt looked new and fussy and totally unlike Elena's dear friend.

April sat, cleared her throat, and pulled the microphone closer. "Hello," she said.

Elena groaned and covered her mouth with her hands. Thick tears filled her eyes but didn't fall. She pushed them away with her fingers.

"That is April?" Damon asked and she nodded, smiling quickly.

He didn't sit, but stood behind the chair, watching.

"On July 13, a friend and I hired a boat from Victoria on Mahe Island to tour some of the outer Seychelles islands." April was reading from cards held in shaking hands and it was such a strange show of nerves that Elena wished she could be there, to help her.

Except for a cut on her lip and some swelling around it, April's face was clear of bruises. There were no bandages on the arms revealed by the pale-yellow shirt she wore.

"She wasn't hurt," Damon said as if he was noticing the same thing.

Elena shook her head and was silent.

"By midday the boat was boarded by pirates and we were taken aboard their ship." Elena had brief memories of the guns and the yelling, the pebbled surface of the boat deck under her knees. "From there we travelled to a large freighter they had captured and were using as a base."

"How long were you there?" someone in the audience shouted and April looked up, flustered, but then after a long, slow, shaky breath, her lip kicked up in the corner.

"Impatient bugger," she said and the room laughed. Elena laughed, too. Behind her she could hear Damon's surprised huff of breath.

 _There is the April I know,_ Elena thought.

"Let me…let me just get through this part. I will answer your questions when I'm done." April glanced back down at her cards, appearing so painfully alone, a dot of yellow on a sea of blue. "Though scared, we were well fed and given plenty of water while on the freighter. We were there for four days before being taken to shore in Somalia. From there we were moved from camp to camp for nearly two weeks before settling in Garoowe for the duration of our captivity."

"Who was your friend?" a reporter shouted, and this time April couldn't shut them up with a smile and some bravado. The yelling became louder and she blinked from the flashes on the cameras. She looked cornered. Trapped.

"Where the hell is her family?" Damon asked. "Someone should be taking care of that woman, helping her."

"They are…" Elena shook her head, her fingers pressing against her lips as if there were words she could stop, or coax free. "Proud. And super-strict. This would be awful for them."

"Looks like a picnic for their daughter," Damon muttered.

April lifted her hands. "Please, I will answer everything, just one at a time."

"Who were you with?" a voice called out of the melee.

April winced and Elena closed her eyes, knowing what was going to happen.

"No," Damon breathed, catching on. "Oh, damn, no."

April looked right at the camera, like she had probably been coached to. "Elena Gilbert."

"Jesus Christ," Damon muttered. "Is this a joke?"

There was a hushed roar in the room and then another voice yelled out for clarification. "The daughter of Virginia Governor Grayson Gilbert?"

April nodded.

"Is Elena still in Somalia?" a reporter called out and April shook her head.

"Her family ransomed her."

With those words April guaranteed that Elena would be the most sought-after news story around the world. As if on cue, Jeremy's phone, which Damon kept charged by the tiled counter, started to buzz.

Her family.

 _It will be okay,_ Elena thought. _It will._

Damon sat down on the chair opposite her. His beer bottle hit the table with a thunk.

Elena took it as a personal mission not to look at him.

"Did you know she was going to do that?"

"I told her she could."

"Elena." He sighed, and she could see his flexing muscles under the T-shirt he wore. "Do you know what that means?"

When Elena looked at him her expression was stone cold. She had known, and she had done it anyway. Good or bad, she had made a decision and she was going to see it through.

"Her family sold everything to get her free. This is her way of trying to take care of them. Of herself."

"How much did she get?" Damon asked.

"Not enough for what she did for me," Elena said.

After a moment, Damon nodded.

"You seem unharmed," one of the reporters asked and Damon focused on the laptop.

"The pirates didn't hurt us." April touched her lip. "This was at the end."

"Was Elena Gilbert released unharmed as well?"

April looked down at the microphone. "There was one pirate, Yeri…" Elena reached out to close the laptop but not before April said: "At night he would come into our hut—"

Elena slammed the top of the laptop down so hard it slid onto the floor at his feet.

The silence pounded.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as Damon blinked. "If it is broken, the laptop, I will replace it."

"I don't care about the computer." Elena could feel his eyes burning holes through her skin. Carefully, on legs that wobbled, she stood.

"What was she going to say about Yeri?"

"He is the one who hit me." Elena took a shuffling step towards the stairs leading to the bedroom, where she could at least attempt to shut him out. "Thank you for waking me up, I'm…I'm tired. The bath and everything, so exhausting, all that hair combing…" She was babbling, but couldn't stop. "I'm going back to sleep now."

At the door to her room Elena saw the freshly made bed, the new sheets Damon had put on for her, and she didn't want to be touched. Or moved. Or thankful. But she was.

She had to thank him and when she turned around, Damon was standing so close she nearly fell backward.

Carefully, so gently she actually barely felt it, he pulled her into balance.

"Let me help you," he said and she nodded, because she was tired and reeling and, she realized, shaking. Not just trembling, but shaking, and the second he touched her he knew it, too.

Silently, Damon helped her into bed, lifted her feet to slide them under the thin white sheets with faded blue flowers on them. He pulled the top sheet up to her chest.

"Thank you, I—"

Damon braced his hands on the pillow near her shoulders; his eyes, so intense and knowing, pierced her skin. His face was so close she could touch it if she wanted. She could reach up and cup his cheek in her hand, feel the silk of his hair against her fingers.

Not friends, she thought. Not friends and not anything else.

But God, she wanted to touch him. She wanted to hold herself to the rock and heat of him. An anchor against the tides bullying her.

"What did Yeri do?" Damon asked.

"He watched us while we slept," Elena told him. The truth, and yet not. "It was scary."

His eyes moved slowly over her face, from her hair, dry now and soft, to the stitches on her forehead, across her bruises and back up to her eyes.

Elena couldn't breathe. If he were any other man, in any other situation, she would be sure he was going to kiss her. But she was never sure of Damon.

"You are not telling me the truth."

 _Because I'm a virgin. I'm a virgin and it sounds ridiculous even to me._

"He didn't rape me."

"You were unconscious, Elena. For a long time."

"The doctor said there was no sign of trauma. The rape kit was negative." But somehow that negative kit did nothing to dispel all her own fear. He would have raped her, there were times she was sure he would do it. Nights when she and April wouldn't have been able to scare him away.

And her virginity would have been taken in a violent, awful act, against her will.

There was no kit that could end that fear. That fear had seeped into her bones.

Clearly unconvinced, Damon stared, so Elena did the one thing that would guarantee he would leave.

She touched him.

Her hand cupped his shoulder, her finger slipped over the neckline of his shirt to touch his skin, feel his pulse in his neck. An accident, but a good one. A breathtaking, heart-stopping accident.

Elena opened her mouth to speak but found all her energy focused on her hand, on feeling him, absorbing him. Under her palm his skin twitched and it was hot, hotter than she would have thought. And smooth. The muscle under his arm shifted, a tremor to the larger earthquake of him stepping back. Away.

Mission accomplished.

Colder, emptier, her hand slipped back to the bed.

At the door Damon paused, surrounded by the golden light from the lamp in the hallway. The shadows over his face were opaque and Elena couldn't see his expression. Not that it mattered, his expression never revealed anything.

"We could never have been friends," Damon said. "But I liked you. I have always liked you."


	7. Chapter 7

Damon woke up on the edge of a blade. Eyes open. Heart a steady thud in his chest. Under the pillow his hand was gripped around the old hunting knife Stefan had given him for high school graduation. The front door was closed.

The windows were closed.

He turned. The lights on the stairs were still turned on. There was silence.

 _What woke me up?_ he thought.

"You know, in the movies," said Elena's disembodied voice, "you would wake up with a gun in your hand, ready to take on the bad guys."

Damon let go of his knife's rugged grip and in a breath his heartbeat calmed back to normal.

"This isn't a movie." Damon turned to find Elena sitting in the darkest shadows just to the left of the sofa, her back against the wall. A box next to her. A box she was going through.

"You don't sleep with a gun under your pillow?" she asked. "Some bodyguard you are."

"You are feeling better."

"I am. I'm feeling both better and bored." She held up a newspaper. The headline screamed in all caps MUSICIAN MURDERED BY STARLET WIFE. "You didn't tell me this house was the scene of a murder."

"It didn't happen inside this house. The murder was in the alley right behind The Grill which is close by this house."

"Well, I'm totally comforted by that." She unfolded the newspaper and it ripped down the middle. "Oops." Her efforts to put it back together were useless. "I'm sorry."

"It is junk, Elena."

"Not all of it."

"Trust me. All of it. It is stuff from the bar my brother couldn't throw away."

"I don't blame him." Elena pulled over a lamp made from the glass body of a naked woman, her hands covering her breasts. "These are treasures."

"What are you doing?" Damon sat all the way up, making sure the sheet was pulled over his hips. As it was, he felt her eyes on his chest. His arms. She watched him carefully, secretly. Like the girl she had been.

Damon hated that it turned him on.

Elena had caught him at a vulnerable time. Mornings were the worst for him, the cobwebs of his dreams clung to him, blurring what he knew was real and what he wished was real.

"Going through stuff," she said. "This place reminds me of my grandmother's place."

"Your grandmother's place"—he couldn't believe he was saying that word with a straight face—"is a billion dollar apartment. This is an ancient house in a small town."

"Yeah, but my grandmother would like this." Elena held up the old rattlesnake skin he and Stefan had found when they were kids. Amazing, that it had survived.

Carefully, she put the snakeskin back in the box, and the white T-shirt that was too big for her slipped down over her shoulder, revealing her collarbone, hinting at the swell of her breast.

The memory of her in the bath just hours ago flashed through his brain. The knobs of her spine, the muscles in her shoulders. The pink of her ears through the wet ropy strands of her hair.

 _The bruises, you pervert, remember the bruises,_ Damon said to himself.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Ten. Time to rise and shine."

It was like waking up to a different person.

If it weren't for the bruises he could still see despite the shadows where she sat and the way she held her arm, he would wonder if this cheerful, joking woman was Elena.

"I'm bored. I'm hungry. Let's go do something."

"The entire news media is looking for you."

"But they certainly aren't looking for me here." Elena picked up the newspaper she had accidentally torn and read from the masthead. "In Mystic Falls, population three thousand."

"I imagine it has grown since that newspaper came out."

"I imagine it doesn't matter. Come on, Damon. Let's do something. I will give you a raise."

Damon was bored. He was hungry. And he was pushed off-kilter by her smile.

Suspicion wasn't just part of his job, it was part of him. Why was she smiling? Especially now. After last night. The press conference.

"Oh, God, Damon, stop staring at me like that, I want to go outside. Do something. See people."

"You can't see people. You are in hiding."

"Then I just want to see signs of civilization."

As she smiled the light in her brightened, and Damon remembered that the woman who had been sleeping for days, grouchy and angry, she was the anomaly. This woman, with the smile and curiosity, the light that burned away the shadows, this was the Elena he remembered.

And there was no question she was up to something. But what?

"Aha!" she cried, holding up several pieces of fishing rods, the fishing line tangled in an iridescent knot. "Do these still work?"

Two hours later they were driving down a dirt road. Elena had battered down all Damon's protests. She just kept smiling and laughing and joking and working it until he threw up his hands and said fine.

It was exhausting. She was exhausted. The white-knuckled grip she was using to keep her shit together was killing her.

But the sun was shining down on them with all its goodwill from the bright blue sky. The breeze blew in through the open windows of the pickup truck that Damon had borrowed from his brother, and Elena carefully, gingerly pulled one leg under her body and turned to face Damon, where he sat driving the truck, one hand draped over the top of the wheel.

"I feel like we are living a country music song."

All she got for her efforts was a patronizing lip curl. She was clearly not the woman to make this man smile.

His shirt rippled and danced along his biceps. Along his rib cage. Revealing muscles and strength.

It took some effort, but Elena pulled her eyes away.

That, right there, that had to stop.

"Can I take this off?" She pulled at the bill of the Del Monte cap they had found in the house.

"No."

"Damon, there is no one here." She gestured out to the dirt road, the trees and the creek beyond it. The endless uninterrupted sunlight.

It was nice. Good.

Made faking relaxation not such a chore.

"Do you know what would happen if anyone with a camera found out where you are?"

"They would take a picture?"

Damon shot her a stormy look and Elena smiled, resting her head against the window. She was tired, having spent most of the last day formulating a plan to make Damon leave.

"After I left your family I had a job on a detail for this pop star, a kid, not much more than a boy, really. And the rules were, he never went out the front door. Ever. But one night, with me, we were at a hotel in Kansas City, it was the middle of the night, the middle of nowhere, and he wanted to go out the front door. I argued with him, but he insisted." Damon shook his head. "I thought he was going to get killed, literally pulled apart by crying teenage girls and fat old men with cameras. By the time we got him to the car the kid was practically in shock."

That was easily the most words he had ever said to her at one time.

"I think you are exaggerating the problem."

"I think you are naive."

Elena wanted to tell him he was ridiculous, that she had held dying babies and clung to her best friend while someone stabbed her in the arm with a knife—but he was right.

She was naive. And hopeful and a romantic and optimistic and what she truly needed to be protected from was him. From her feelings for him.

"What an interesting life you have led," she said. Damon didn't say anything. "I guess after you were injured, being a bodyguard was a logical choice."

He eased them over into the grass; a small bounce made her wince, but then he stopped the truck and put it in park. One long arm, muscular and warm, slipped over the back of the bench seat and even that, even that small shift toward her, the focus of his eyes underneath the dark aviator glasses he wore that made him look like a movie star playing a bodyguard—made her heart pound.

"I'm not sure what fantasy you have created about me," Damon said.

 _Oh God, you don't want to know,_ Elena thought, clutching her fingers together in her lap. She wanted to touch him, run her fingers along that rise of muscle, right there under the sleeve of his shirt. She wanted to follow the curve over the mound of his shoulder, the dip of his back. She wanted to put her fingers in the hair behind his ear, just to know how soft it was. She wanted to press her nose to the skin of his neck, right there, where she could see his heart beating in the cradle of a tendon.

She wanted to bite him. Taste him. Lick him.

"But there weren't a lot of choices for a guy like me."

"Oh please," Elena said, not buying that for a second. "You have done pretty well, Damon. There are a lot of guys who come back injured and haven't done half as well, so you can stop the woe-is-me thing."

Damon blinked.

Elena grinned. "You ready to go fishing?"

Carefully, gingerly, she popped open her door and stepped out into the tall grass. Butterflies and crickets buzzed up around her and mud squished under her shoes. The smell of earth and sunlight and water was a powerful perfume.

Damon appeared beside her with two folding chairs and a cooler. "Wait here," he said, "let me get set up and I will come help you."

Sounded good to her and she rested against the hot metal of the passenger-side door, breathing carefully through the throb in her ribs.

This might not have been her best idea. Fishing? She hated fishing. And she could use a nap.

Damon reappeared through the bushes, and because Elena was exhausted by her mental lusting she forced herself not to watch him as he grabbed the fishing poles from the back.

"You okay?" he asked, coming to stand beside her, and she gathered herself from the waters she had been scattered across. With what felt like monumental effort she pushed away from the door with a smile.

"Here, tough guy," Damon murmured and he grabbed her hand and put it over his forearm, like they had stepped back in time and he was escorting her to a ball.

The fantasy of being courted by Damon swirled around her for a second, because it was fertile, fresh ground her teenage brain had not covered, but then Elena put it away with the rest of her old girlish fantasies.

The trail was rough and slow-going but worth it once they passed through the bushes and Elena saw the small wooden pier jutting out into the wide, calm river. The chairs sat at the end, the cooler between them, surrounded by the glitter of sun bouncing off water.

Sudden emotion gathered in a hard ball at the back of her throat. There were moments, in that three-week captivity, she had doubted days like this would happen to her ever again.

Days of sunlight and freedom and quiet company.

It was enough to make her reconsider her stance on fishing. Maybe she would add it to the credo.

"This is great," she breathed, because she could feel him watching her, aware of her mood, and she was done with tears. Done with his sympathy and pity.

Done with him altogether, but Damon didn't know that yet.

Damon helped her down the pier to the chairs and she gratefully sat. From the cooler he pulled a container of worms, bottles of water, and a bag of liquorice (which nearly broke her because she loved liquorice and he remembered that) and then lifted her feet and set them on the cooler.

His chair creaked as he sat and began assembling the fishing rods, which had been broken down.

"No one has ever said that to me," Damon said.

"What?"

"That I have it pretty good. That I'm lucky."

"Well, aren't you?"

"Sometimes yes. Other times, I'm not so sure."

"I think that is life, Damon. You can take it from the girl kidnapped by pirates."

Damon shook his head, maybe laughing, maybe despairing of her sense of humour. Hard to say.

"Do you even know how to fish?" Under his hands fishing rods clicked back together.

"Do you?"

"My brother and I built this pier. We spent summers out here fishing. We considered it a calling."

Damon fed the fishing line through the hoops, guiding it up over the tip, and then he started to tie on the hook.

Did he know he was smiling? Elena wondered.

"I would like to meet this brother of yours."

He stood and cast for her, sending the hook and worm and bobber sailing out over the sparkling water before handing her the rod.

"You are full service, aren't you?"

"I am."

He did the same for himself and then sat beside her in the creaky chair.

Elena let the crickets dominate the conversation for a while before taking as deep a breath as she could. Slowly, she let it out, blowing away all her stress and anxiety, and tried very hard to just act natural. "What is your plan, Damon?"

"For what?" He reeled in his line a bit.

"For…after. When are you leaving?"

"Mystic Falls?"

Faking nonchalance, Elena looked away as Damon turned towards her, but doubted its ability to convince.

"I don't have a plan."

"Well, you should, shouldn't you?"

"Spit it out, Elena." He was on to her, as she had known he would be.

"You are relieved from duty."

x x x

Without looking at him Elena could feel his incredulity. Damon was a second away from laughing at her.

"You are kidding. It has been three days."

"I'm feeling better. I can dress myself, feed myself. The infection is better, my ribs are healing. I'm not worried about the concussion anymore. I'm on the mend."

It wasn't a total lie, more of a partial lie, and Elena kept her face averted, her attention on her bobber, drifting downstream with the sluggish river current.

"Is that what this little fishing trip is about?" Damon leaned back in his chair and picked up a bottle of water. "You are trying to prove you are all right and don't need me anymore."

"No." Damn it! That was exactly what she was doing. "The fishing trip is about fishing. But I don't need you anymore."

"What about the press conference?"

Elena rolled her eyes. "No one is looking for me here, Damon. And if they do happen to find me—well, I have to face the music at some point."

"So, you think I should just dump you here. Alone in a haunted house somewhere in a small town?"

"I do."

"No."

Elena looked at Damon, only to find him smiling at her. Not his half-grin, not his wry little twists of muscle that usually passed as an expression of happiness, but a smile. With teeth.

Oh God, the way he smiled. He looked so gorgeous and sexy.

Elena looked away.

"I will fire you."

Damon laughed, and Elena knew better than to look, but she was stupid when it came to him and she did anyway. His throat was stretched back, his mouth open wide as he roared his amusement.

Thwarted, Elena growled and started to reel in her line because the bobber had gotten too far away from her.

"You never hired me, honey. You haven't paid me a cent. Neither has your family. I'm here of my own free will and you can't get rid of me."

Elena gaped at him, stunned. "You are not…you are not being paid?"

Damon sobered, cleared his throat, and busied himself with fishing business. But his silence spoke volumes.

They had known each other for barely six months before Elena had thrown her girlish, simple self at him, been part of him losing his first job after the Corps. They weren't friends, had never been friends despite her efforts. The implications of what he was saying didn't make sense to her.

"Then…why?" It was barely a breath, a whisper.

"Because your brother came to me. Should I have turned him away? Let you sit in that camp for who knows how long? Do you think I'm capable of that?"

His beautiful blue-grey eyes were stormy, full of more emotion than Elena had ever seen from him, except for what she barely remembered in the hospital and the plane.

It was transfixing, she couldn't move under the force of this sudden emotion. This hot anger from a man who had only been cold.

And the truth was, in her life no man had ever looked at her like that. Ever.

"Of course not," Elena said. Last night, she laid awake knowing that what she felt for Damon when she was seventeen was nothing compared to what she could feel for him now. If he stayed and cared for her, his fingers in her hair, revealing things about his past, she would suck up all those crumbs and create a cake of imagined reciprocated feeling. She would delude herself all over again that beneath his silence and dark brooding eyes Damon felt something more for her than duty. More even than friendship.

And her heart would get smashed. Again.

And once was enough.

"But…I would like you to go," Elena said.

"Just like that?"

She nodded.

"What are you going to do?" Damon asked.

An excellent question. One that had kept her up last night as well.

"I'm going to wait until the worst of the bruising is gone and then I will contact my family and arrange a press conference."

"Why wait?"

"It is not that I'm vain—"

"I know that."

"I go on air and the story is these bruises and I have things I want to talk about at the press conference. Poverty and global aid."

"It will be at least another week before the bruises are gone."

"I know."

Damon sucked a deep breath in through his teeth and Elena wondered what he thought. Was he hurt? Did he sense her feelings? Maybe he was relieved. Whatever it was, she would never know.

"Two more days," he said. "I will stay two more days."

"Including today?"

"Is it that bad?" Damon snapped, his voice sizzling hot. "Am I—" He stopped. Stood. "Tomorrow night, I will leave."

Damon walked away, up the pier. Bushes rustled as he moved past, but the truck never started. Elena knew it wouldn't. He wouldn't leave her alone.

His fishing pole, where he had dropped it, the line still in the water, jerked and then slid across the pier, rolling until it stopped, wedged between two slats of wood.

A fish, Elena thought, but didn't move. Damon caught a fish.

The line pulled taut, bending the tip of the fishing pole into an arc.

It bent and it bent, the pressure greater every second. The thin plastic line glittered like the edge of a knife in the sunlight. Elena held her breath, feeling like that line, waiting for it to snap, wanting it to in some perverse way.

But it didn't.

It held. Stronger than the force trying to break it.

Damon, still feeling duped, still amazed that Elena had managed to dupe him, drove slowly back into town. The fishing trip was a bust; about twenty minutes after he had left her on that pier, he had gone back to collect her and the rods.

Elena was exhausted now, her eyes closed, her head gingerly resting against the passenger-side window. But he could tell by the tension in her body she wasn't sleeping.

She wanted him to leave.

Why that managed to be both surprising and surprisingly painful, Damon wasn't sure.

 _Your plan had been to leave,_ he reminded himself. _You were going to drop her off, make sure she could fend for herself, and then go. This is actually exactly what your plan entailed. And now you are mad?_

Instead of stopping at the Salvatore boarding house, Damon drove farther into town, into the square, and managed to get a spot in front of Rebekah's cafe. It was just after the lunch rush, so the place was mostly empty.

"What are we doing?"

"Getting some food, you can stay in the truck," Damon told her, turning off the car and popping open his door. But of course her door popped open too and Elena was carefully sliding herself out.

It wasn't his job to yell at her, to show her the dangers. So he bit his tongue and shoved his keys in his pocket.

The bell over the door rang out as Damon stepped in and then turned, holding the door open for Elena. Christ, he thought, looking at her face with new eyes, she looked rough. He took off his glasses and handed them to her.

"Put these on," he said.

Elena did what he asked without comment. Going through the airport she had been in a daze. This was the first time she was totally cognizant of being out in public. And people were staring.

"Well, will you look what the wind blew in," a voice rang out and Damon turned, a smile on his face, to find Rebekah behind the cash register.

Their affinity, such as it was, was based solely on his love of her food and her love of feeding people. He imagined that she had the same relationship with half the town, but that didn't change its power. At least for him.

It was why she was so successful. And why she deserved to be.

"Hello, Rebekah," he said, leading Elena to a booth near the front of the restaurant. As they passed, the couple at the table closest to the door turned to watch.

Elena just didn't blend in with those bruises. And she was shuffling, her whole body tense, her breath shallow. She needed a Percocet.

Damon should have taken her home first and then come. But maybe he had wanted to show her that she did need him—in no uncertain terms.

Damon held her elbow, helping her sit.

"You okay?" he breathed.

"Just peachy."

When he walked over to the counter to order, all the welcome was gone from Rebekah's face and she was staring at Elena with the kind of intensity that put Damon on full alert.

"Hi," Elena said, catching Rebekah's eye.

"Hello yourself," she said, carefully, like Elena might spook. "You okay?"

"What makes you ask?" Elena said, trying for a joke. Damon was going to have to tell her that not everyone found her funny.

Damon rocked back on his heels, "She is fine—"

Rebekah put up her hand, exuding a whole lot of don't mess with me, boy. "I'm talking to her."

"I'm fine," Elena said. "Honestly, Damon is taking care of me."

"Looks like he is doing a great job," Rebekah muttered.

"You are the second person to say that," Elena said, looking up at him through his sunglasses. "That doesn't bother you?"

Not as much as seeing her in pain. Not as much as his shadowy reasons for bringing her in here made him feel like a bully.

"Rebekah, we are going to take some food to go," Damon said, ignoring Elena's question, but Rebekah was still looking at Elena. "Rebekah?"

She shook her head, as if coming up out of a trance, or a memory. And her eyes were haunted. Rebekah didn't talk much about her past, but he had the sense it wasn't good.

"What happened?"

Damon stepped closer to the counter to whisper: "Some bad guys got a hold of her, and I'm trying to keep her safe."

After a moment, Rebekah nodded. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "That crack about not doing a good job—"

He waved it away. "Don't worry about it."

"You are one of the good guys, Damon," she said and he would have waved that away too if she hadn't straightened her spine and grabbed her order pad.

"What can I get you?"

He ordered the brisket sandwich for himself. With the works. "What would you like?" he asked Elena, pointing to the menu on the table.

"An omelette," Elena said. "With lots of vegetables. And cheese."

Rebekah smiled and wrote it down. "I can fix you up. You want some coffee while you wait?"

They both nodded. Damon sat down across from Elena in the booth and a moment later a waitress brought over two steaming mugs of coffee.

Elena pulled off the glasses and Damon didn't try to stop her, they weren't fooling anyone.

"You want a pain pill?" he asked.

"I can wait," she said and blew over her coffee, making ripples across the top, before taking a sip. "Oh." She sighed. "That is so good."

Damon smiled before swallowing some. "My brother takes Rebekah's coffee as a personal affront," he said.

"That is because your brother is jealous," Rebekah told him, her blue eyes laughing. "Plain jealous."

The bell rang and two men came in holding small digital video cameras. Damon put down his cup.

"Hey, Rebekah," one of them said, a short man in a Red Sox hat. "We need to shoot some B roll."

B roll? Damon thought and stood up, in front of Elena. Rebekah caught his movement and the cold look on his face and shook her head.

"Not now, guys." Rebekah waved them off and they both scowled.

"What do you mean not now?" the taller of the two said, looking around. Damon immediately pegged him as a troublemaker. It was in the sour look around his eyes, the lines around his mouth indicating a constant frown. This was a guy who did not give a shit. "It is not like you are busy."

"She said not now." Damon's voice drew both men's attention. The shorter one, in the Red Sox hat, seemed to realize Damon wasn't fooling around and he turned off his camera, putting it down by his side.

The brains in the operation, Damon assessed.

"We can come back," Red Sox agreed but the taller man shot him a wide-eyed, pissed-off look.

"When? We are already behind and we are filming at the football game tomorrow for twelve hours." Tall guy turned to Rebekah. "It will take five minutes."

"You can wait five minutes," Damon told the men. "And then you can tape all you like."

"Holy shit, who the hell are you, man?" the tall guy asked. He shook his head. "Damn. Rebekah, five minutes and we are out of your hair."

Damon reached over and grabbed the camera, pulled out the memory card and dropped it on the ground.

"You can pick that up and go, or I can smash it. And then I will smash your camera." Damon held out the camera, offering him the chance to leave with whatever work he had on the card intact.

It was a way to keep the lawsuits at bay.

"Darryl," Red Sox said, "it is not worth it. We will wait outside for five minutes."

"I would listen to your friend, Darryl," Damon told him. After a long moment and a posturing stare down, the taller man knelt, grabbed the chip, and swiped the camera from Damon's hand.

"Asshole," he whispered under his breath and left.

Damon waited until the men were gone and he couldn't see them before he turned and helped Elena to her feet. "Rebekah," he said. "I will be back for the food."

"Don't bother," Rebekah said. "I will bring it by. You are staying at the Salvatore house?"

He nodded and started to lead Elena away.

"My coffee," Elena said, reaching for the mug. But Rebekah, not missing a beat, grabbed a to-go cup, filled it, and handed it to her as Damon led her out the door.

He helped her into the car and then walked around to the driver's side. He scanned the cars parked beside the truck, the windows along the street, the park on the other side of the road. No sign of the camera guys, or their cameras.

"What…what was that?" Elena asked, putting the sunglasses back on. "B roll?"

"I have no idea," Damon said, backing up the truck, "but I know who will."

It was time to talk to his brother.

x x x

You could have knocked Stefan over with a feather when Damon walked in through the back door of the bar on Monday afternoon.

"Hey, man," Stefan said, trying to keep it cool. "What are you doing out of captivity?"

Damon smiled and Stefan had that singular little brother pride that came with making his big brother laugh. As Damon made his way around the bar to the tall stool at the corner, Stefan pulled him a tall draft of the Hogs-Head he liked and slid it toward him across the bar.

"Fancy moves, bartender," Damon said and took a swallow of the beer.

"Wait until I bust out my Tom Cruise Cocktail routine."

"I'm terrified."

"You should be."

Damon took another sip of the beer in front of him, just as some of the crew from the show came in and sat down in their corner table. Almost immediately they had their phones out. Their representative, Gary, a short guy in a Red Sox hat, came up to the bar.

"Hey, Gary," Stefan said, but the guy stopped in his tracks when he saw Damon.

"Holy hell, man, you are everywhere," Gary said, lifting his hands. "I don't want any trouble."

"Me neither," Damon said and took another sip of beer, managing to look totally nonchalant and yet utterly badass.

Gary ordered their drinks and scampered back to the table.

"What was that about?" Stefan asked, pouring drinks and setting them on a tray.

"I ran into them at Rebekah's," Damon said. "They were taping and I asked them to stop."

"Did you use your words, like a big boy?"

"Who are they?"

"They are filming that reality show."

"You are kidding. Here?"

"Happened over the summer. Remember when Monica Starr was here to write that book about the night her mum killed her father?"

Damon nodded, but he couldn't stop the smile that flashed across his face. No one could when they thought of Monica. She had been like a gale force wind of fresh air through here a few months ago.

"Well, Andie followed Monica to beg her not to write the book. After Jackson blew the Maybream competition, Andie, as a favour to Monica, offered to film the last season of the reality show here, to help the town and the economy."

"Sounds like a double-edged sword."

"It is all right," Stefan said, putting three gin and tonics on a tray, as well as a vodka soda and a Jim Beam on the rocks. "They drink a lot."

"How long are they in town for?" Damon asked, jerking his head back at the film crew.

"Another month. Actually, I'm not sure. Why?"

Damon ran his hands over his face and into his hair. "Because the girl…Elena. She needs to stay hidden, and that can't happen with a film crew in town, can it?"

"There are a lot of rules about where they can film. And anyone they shoot has to sign a waiver; if they refuse, their face will be blurred out," Stefan explained. But Damon looked like he was chewing nails. "Not good enough?"

"For Elena?" Damon shook his head. "No. Hell, no."


	8. Chapter 8

Rebekah got out of her car, huffed her way to the front door of the Salvatore boarding house, her arms full of food.

 _You got to get in shape, honey. You can't even walk a few steps without needing a nap halfway_ , she told herself.

Though in her defence she was carrying probably forty pounds of food.

She might have overdone it with the jars of soup. And the loaf of bread. The bottle of wine was probably a mistake, too.

When she was at the front door, and with her arms full, she reached out with her foot to kick the bottom of the door. No response.

 _Oh, come on_ , Rebekah thought. There was no way she was taking this food back to her car She turned sideways to look in the window, see if she could find some sign of life.

"Holy shit," she breathed, so startled she nearly dropped the food. That woman had looked rough with the sunglasses and hat on in the café, but without the camouflage, the face looking back through the window at her was bad.

Real, real bad.

"I'm Rebekah" she yelled when the woman just stared at her. "From the café. I have brought food."

When the woman smiled, her face actually looked worse, but soon the door was open and some of the bags were being taken from her hands.

"Come in," the woman said. "I'm sorry, it took me a second to realize who you were." She set the bags on the small counter on the other side of the door and then stepped aside to let Rebekah in with the rest of them.

"Where is Damon?" Rebekah asked, surprised he wasn't standing watch over her. That was some very protective vibes he threw out at the café earlier.

"At the Grill talking to his brother."

"Stefan?"

"He has more than one brother?"

Rebekah shook her head. "One Stefan is enough."

"This is a lot of food," the woman said. "Didn't we just order a sandwich and some eggs?"

"Well, I figured the cupboards up here would be bare."

Rebekah shook out her hands, numb and now tingling from the weight of the plastic bags, before opening the fridge.

"Beer," she said, staring at the six-pack in the empty fridge. "Half of my salad. And nothing else. That is actually better than I expected."

Rebekah kept a nice stream of chatter going, the whole time taking in the kitchen It looked like Stefan managed to keep the place clean, which was a plus. What the stuffed bear and all the mounted fish were doing lying around, she had no idea.

She put the soup and Damon's sandwich, some of her chicken and dumplings and a big square of brownies in the fridge.

"Smells really good," the woman said, sitting cross-legged on the chair. If she had to guess, Rebekah would say the woman was thirty, maybe younger, hard to tell with the bruises. But she was tall and thin and her brown hair was long down her back. Her eyes were nearly the same colour as her hair, and she looked a little doped.

"That is the idea," Rebekah said. The loaves of bread she tucked into a cupboard.

She found a clean plate, and slid the veggie omelette with cheddar cheese on it. Toast was in a separate bag so it didn't get all wilty.

"You want ketchup or anything?" she asked.

"No. Thank you."

"Orange juice? More coffee?"

"Orange juice is in the credo, so I have to say yes."

Credo? Rebekah turned on her. "You high?"

The woman nodded. "Painkiller, just kicked in."

"Feeling good?"

"Like I'm on a pink cloud."

"Well, thank the Lord for small favours."

"And omelettes."

Rebekah laughed. "Why not?" She handed the woman the plate and set the glass on the coffee table. "What is your name, honey? I can't keep calling you 'the woman' in my head."

"Elena," she answered, focused on her eggs, although the use of a knife seemed beyond her. Rebekah reached over and cut the eggs for her, setting the pieces on the toast, where the cheese oozed out onto the butter.

Elena groaned while she ate, which was satisfying to Rebekah on a molecular level.

Considering the girl was high as a kite, small talk was totally unnecessary and Rebekah wasn't one to mince words, never had been.

"So, Elena," she said, stretching an arm across the dining table and pointing to the bruised half of her companion's face. "Who did that to you? Your husband? Boyfriend? Daddy?"

"Pirate," Elena answered through a mouthful of spinach.

"Pardon?"

Elena swallowed. "Pirates." She reached for the orange juice with both hands and drank down half the glass before putting it back on the table.

Rebekah looked at the woman, Elena…whatever. And was furious. Furious on Elena's behalf, on behalf of every single woman who had been beaten and had the guts to stand up and name her attacker.

"Is that your idea of a joke?" Rebekah stood and put her hands on her hips. She didn't want to be mad at the bruised, stoned little white girl, but she wasn't a fool either. Particularly about this. "You are sitting there with a black eye and making jokes? You know, if you are still too scared or unsure to tell me who beat the shit out of you, fine. That is fine. I get it, sometimes it takes time to say those words out loud, and you don't know me from Adam, but at the least, at the very least, respect the fact that I'm asking. That I care. And don't give me a bullshit joke answer about pirates."

Elena focused her big brown eyes as best she probably could. She swallowed whatever was in her mouth and said: "Somali pirates. I was kidnapped, held for ransom for three weeks."

Rebekah sat back down, her hands in her lap.

"Well. Holy shit."

Elena smiled, either too high or perhaps too good-natured to be angry at Rebekah's soapbox tirade. "You thought I meant Arrrgh matey pirates?"

"I thought you were trying to be cute."

Elena made a non-committal humming noise in her throat as she kept eating, twining long stretches of cheese around her fork before putting it in her mouth.

"I'm sorry," Rebekah said, running her finger along the dining table. This was one of the great many reasons she didn't have any close friends. In conversation, in the casual back and forth between people, she had an unrelenting knack of making it all about her. Of letting her pride take over until there was no give and take with her. It was only give, or only take.

Her mother had said Rebekah was born righteous. Came out of the womb with her back up and her finger shaking. And her mother would know righteous.

And that was hard to be friends with.

It could be hard to live with, too.

"Don't be," Elena said. "Thank you for the food. You didn't have to do that."

But she did. She did have to do that, because after one look at Elena's face, she was a kid again, in pain and betrayed. Confused and scared. And she had to do something.

So, she brought food.

"Food is what I have got to give." It was her language.

"Did someone hit you?" Elena asked, and the fact that it was through a mouthful of egg and cheese took some of the loaded drama out of the question.

People around town knew; it wasn't like Rebekah kept it a secret. Jules was always trying to get Rebekah to help teach a class at the Art Barn for kids who had been victims or witnesses to violence, which was a great idea, but Rebekah wasn't interested in digging through her ancient history.

"My dad," she said.

"That is awful."

"It was. But I was pretty young and it was a long time ago."

"He still alive?"

Rebekah shook her head. "He died in a car accident. I was in fifth grade."

"I'm sorry."

Rebekah smiled, because Elena was, she could tell. "Thank you. I'm sorry you got hurt."

"Damon saved me," Elena said, sitting back against the chair. She rested a hand on her belly and had the half-lidded look of a cat who'd had her fill of cream.

"He is that kind of guy," Rebekah said, picking up the plate and taking it to the sink. She knew nothing about the man, really, but she knew that.

When she turned around Elena had moved to the living room and was gingerly scooting down on the sofa.

"Here," Rebekah said, pushing some pillows behind Elena's shoulders.

"Thank you, sorry to fall asleep on you, but the pain meds—"

"No, I understand, you need to get to sleep."

Rebekah lifted a sheet that was stacked on the leather recliner in the corner and snapped it out over Elena's body.

Elena reached out and touched Rebekah's hand.

"Come back sometime," she said. "When I'm not so tired."

The friends Rebekah did have were casual, maybe asking her out for a drink if there was a group of women going. Jules kept encouraging her to join her book club or some shit, but Rebekah didn't have much to say about books.

Every once in a while, a man would ask her out—high on her rhubarb pie. Those men were easy enough to deflect.

Stefan was harder, with his bright eyes and shit-disturbing nature. Not that he ever asked her out, or that she wanted him to. How would that work? she wondered, imagining them fighting over appetizers and one of them walking out before dinner was served.

Or maybe they would go to a movie.

 _What the hell?_ Rebekah thought, shaking her head. _Stefan and I going to a movie? How ridiculous!_ This day was messing with her head.

"I will come by next week," she said, and left the house, shutting the door quietly behind her.

x x x

Damon was about to push away his half-full glass of beer and go back to the house to break the news to Elena that he wouldn't be leaving tomorrow night, when Rebekah breezed in the back door.

She wore a red T-shirt tucked into a pair of khaki pants—a totally normal outfit, plain even, but with the earrings she wore and the scarf she had around her neck and the clogs on her feet, she managed to make it look glamorous somehow. She made Damon smile.

"What…what the hell are you doing here?" Stefan asked as she stepped behind the bar. But for some reason, he didn't sound quite as acidic as he usually did around Rebekah.

Which was…weird.

"Scoping out the competition," she shot back, but it was with a smile.

Which was weirder.

Damon had to wonder what was at the root of their animosity, because it sure as hell wasn't competition. Stefan didn't stand a chance in that fight. But he also had to wonder where the hell the animosity had gone?

"I brought you guys some food," Rebekah said to Damon.

He rose from his stool. "Elena—"

"Sit. She ate, blathered on about pirates, and then fell asleep."

Oh. Shit. What did the woman have against keeping herself safe?

"Pirates?" Stefan asked, his eyes wide. "Damon?"

Damon measured the pros and cons of telling them and realized he really didn't have a choice. Not if Elena was going to bring up pirates in idle conversation.

"The woman inside the house is Elena Gilbert." He kept his voice low enough that no one else could hear.

"Like…of the Gilberts?" Stefan asked, his voice equally low. "From Richmond?"

Damon nodded.

"Holy shit!"

"She was kidnapped by Somali pirates, held for ransom—"

"You saved her?" Stefan asked and Damon looked away from the klieg light of hero worship in his brother's eyes. "You like blew into some village and saved her?"

"I got her out of Somalia. I brought her here until she recovers. Another week at the most, while she heals."

"What about her family?" Rebekah asked. "Why isn't she with them?"

"Because she doesn't want to be. That is…that is all I can say, except it is very, very important that you don't talk about this. We are trying to keep a low profile."

"That is why you are worried about the camera crew?"

"I'm not worried about the show blurring her face out when it airs, I'm worried about all the cameras around. I had a run-in with the guy in the Red Sox hat and a man named Darryl today at Rebekah's."

"Darryl is bad news," Rebekah said.

"That was my sense. I will keep my eye on him."

"So will I," Stefan said.

"Me too," Rebekah agreed and Damon nearly smiled. It was a ragtag team, but he liked it.

"Thank you," he said to Rebekah. "For bringing the food; it is appreciated." Rebekah waved her hand, dismissing his thanks. "Let me buy you a beer anyway."

Stefan snorted, like the idea was preposterous.

But Rebekah sat down on a bar stool like a queen on her throne and said; "I would love a beer. Whatever you are having."

Stefan tipped his head in a mock bow, but he was smiling as he did it. Perhaps the two of them were ready to be adults, Damon thought, let go of this stupid animosity.

"Hey, Rebekah." A redheaded woman with short hair came up to the bar to get another round for the table of people involved in the reality show. "How come you don't get your liquor license? Put this dump out of business?"

"Hey!" Stefan cried.

"No offense," the redhead said in a voice that was more offensive than what she said.

"How the hell am I not going to be offended?"

"I have no interest in opening a bar," Rebekah said. "Would make it real hard to wake up and make those molasses pancakes you eat every morning."

The redhead nodded as if the thought had merit.

"Here," Stefan said, pushing the tray of drinks toward her. "Walk your own drinks over there."

"What about catering?" the woman asked.

"She is not interested," Stefan said, closing the subject for good, and shooed her away.

"Heck of a way to keep your customers," Rebekah said into her glass.

"You want to cater for me? Let me pass your chili off as my own?"

"No."

Stefan shrugged. "Then what are we arguing about?"

"I wasn't arguing."

"Please, all you do is argue—"

"Kids…" Damon said. "Can't we all just get along?"

Rebekah's mouth fell open. "Was that a joke?" She looked to Stefan. "Is he…is he joking?"

"Occasionally he stops brooding long enough to make a funny."

"I'm glad I got to see it."

"I'm glad you guys are entertained, but it is not a bad idea," Damon said.

"Comedy?" Rebekah said at the same time Stefan said, "Catering."

"Now who is being funny?" Rebekah's sarcasm was brutal, sharp, and Stefan's face tightened. It had been a long time since Damon had seen that expression on his brother's face. That tiny wince, that small tell that somehow the smart-mouth shit-disturber's feelings were hurt.

And that old instinct to protect his brother bobbed up from wherever it hid in the months between visits.

 _He is smaller than you, Damon._ His father's voice was attached like a leech to the instinct. _Weaker than you. He is going to need all of us to take care of him, you most of all._

It had taken awhile for Damon to believe Giuseppe In Damon's opinion the scales were stacked in Stefan's favour. He had the parents, the brother, the absence of memories that included being abandoned by a family member. Stefan knew nothing but happiness, and support and family and love.

Why the hell did he need Damon?

But Stefan had been little, terribly little for so long. And Stefan had looked at Damon with a love so big it started to blot out the memories of being abandoned.

And then protecting Stefan was just a habit.

And then it had become a compulsion.

And then he was just a guy looking for a fight, any fight.

The Marine Corps had helped out on that score. So had staying away from his brother and Mystic Falls as much as he could.

"Stefan," Rebekah said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"Yeah, you did." Stefan turned away from Rebekah, who hung her head for a minute.

"I'm not very good at being nice," she muttered.

"You are nice to me," Damon said.

Rebekah smiled at him.

"Hey, hey, buddy!" Gary, in his Red Sox hat, yelled across the room at Stefan. "Turn up the TV, would you?"

Damon looked up at the small screen in the far corner that Stefan usually had tuned to ESPN, but today he had on CNN. And on the screen, larger than life, was Elena's friend April.

"I hear she is getting a few million for her story," Gary said.

Damon stood and stepped closer to the TV just as Stefan turned it up.

"April Young was held by pirates for three weeks in Somalia," the voice-over said as April's photo was replaced by one of Elena.

It was an ID photo and she had her brown long hair held back by a yellow and red flowered headband. The photographer's instructions probably had been that she couldn't smile, and she wasn't, not really, but there wasn't a part of her face, not even her straight lips, that didn't somehow give the impression of joy.

"Elena Gilbert, daughter of Virginia Governor Grayson Gilbert was with April Young. Miss Gilbert has spent the last year working with Women in Health building a clinic in Dadaab, Kenya. The Gilbert family has released the following statement:

" 'We are so grateful that Elena is home safe and sound. She is resting and healing in the comfort of our home, in the care of her family. Elena has been through a terrible ordeal and we ask that you respect our privacy at this time. When she is recovered and able, she will be joining her brother, Jeremy, as he campaigns for a position in Congress.' "

The news cycle turned over to a tropical storm building off the coast of Florida.

Damon had expected Miranda to issue some kind of press release and this was a good one, the heat was definitely off Elena now and if anyone felt like looking for her and her story, they would be looking in Richmond.

Good, Damon thought, feeling better than he had since last night. Good.

But when he turned to head back to the bar Gary was staring at him. His eyes under the bill of his hat were sharp.

He knew.

Damn. Gary knew.


	9. Chapter 9

Elena carefully got up from the sofa and shuffle-walked to the bathroom. The moon was just over the eastern trees out the window over the toilet and she thought maybe she had been asleep for six hours.

Amazing how much better she felt. The sleep. The food. The sunlight. And maybe the fact that Damon would be leaving made her feel better, too. Instead of constantly reacting to him, she could figure out what she was going to do next with her life.

She glanced through the cracked doorway of the other bedroom at the end of the hallway, where Damon lay, on his stomach, face buried in the pillows. The moonlight cast silver light over his back. All that skin.

He would be leaving tomorrow night. Gone, back into the shadows he came from, and this time…this time Elena was sure she would never see him again.

And it was good—the right thing. But part of it stung and tugged and ached. It wasn't that she didn't want to be alone, she was good with alone. It was the idea of being without Damon that was so disarming.

He had saved her, stayed with her, bullied her, washed her hair, fed her, humoured her.

And soon he would be gone.

 _He is not gone yet._

Ridiculous, this thought in her head. Outrageous.

 _It is not like I'm going to kiss him again,_ she told herself, as she crept towards the partially shut door of the bedroom. _I just want to…do something really creepy, like watch him sleep. Touch his back, the tips of his hair where it brushes his neck._

 _Good God, Elena, you have lost it._

But as she stood in that shadowed hallway, watching him sleep, she thought about sex. And about Yeri.

Whether or not he would have raped her, she couldn't answer. But the threat of it had lived like a knife against her throat for three weeks.

Virgin. When she stopped thinking about sex, put it away on a shelf, for years, it wasn't surreal. It wasn't anything. It was just an absence…a not.

Now it was something disturbing. She was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin. She'd had one serious boyfriend in her life and two utterly unreciprocated infatuations.

That was how far she had drifted away herself…how far down the list her needs and wants had become.

And it wasn't even that simple, it was not like she could throw up her hands and say, "Oh my God, I was so busy saving people that I forgot to have sex!"

But Elena did forget. She forgot to have pleasure. Or pain of her own. She not only removed herself from the sexual equation altogether, but also the equation of her own life. Dating, bad boyfriends, sexual mistakes, kids, a husband, a home that she didn't share with snakes and April. A job that didn't make her lock herself in a storage closet and cry most days. Standing her ground with her mother. Wanting to build something of her own. Wanting those things in Africa was a distraction from the work she had been doing and most days, considering the stakes she was dealing with, utterly inconsequential.

And Yeri could have taken not just her virginity, and brutalized her body, he would have eliminated her choice about how and when she put herself back into the mix.

But without Yeri, without Somalia and the rest of it, Elena might never have found the interest, the courage, to move on.

It was time to make some choices. She chose not to think of how deeply ironic it was to consider her own choices as she decided to slip into bed with a sleeping man.

Like a shadow, Elena crept through the open door of the bedroom. A floorboard creaked under her foot and she froze like a teenager sneaking back into her home after a night drinking. Not that she had ever done that.

Not that she had ever done anything in rebellion but kiss Damon and then run away from her family into the bosom of catastrophe. Refugee camps and disaster zones.

Standing in this room, about to sneak into a man's bed just to listen to him breathe, she realized how weird that was. How weird she was.

 _I need a better rebellion._

And Damon, the silver, moonlit muscles of his back sculpted like sand dunes, was the right kind of rebellion.

Carefully, Elena slipped into bed, her weight barely registering on the mattress. She held her breath, watching him to see if he would notice, but other than the slow up and down of his back, he didn't shift. Curling up on her side, on the farthest edge of the mattress, she tucked her arms around herself and tried not to breathe too loudly.

 _This doesn't feel rebellious._

 _It feels ridiculous._

 _I'm not made for this sort of stuff_. Elena braced herself to leave.

Damon was aware of her the moment she stood at the bedroom door. He had just come in from downstairs and wasn't yet asleep.

 _I should have moved her from the sofa,_ he thought. _Her ribs have to be killing her._

He was about to turn and tell her that she should go back to bed when Elena shocked the hell out of him and slipped into his room.

The floor creaked, the mattress barely dipped but he could smell the flower and vanilla scent of her hair. He could feel her shifting, all along his back.

 _She is in my bed._

His mind was buzzing and blank. And then, after a moment of stillness, he could feel her shifting again.

Damon turned his head, caught her about to roll off the mattress.

"What are you doing?"

Elena jumped and then winced.

"Sorry," he breathed.

"No, I'm sorry. I don't…this…I'm sorry." Her blush was neon. She was going to hyperventilate if she didn't calm down.

And Damon knew in a lightning bolt of insight and lust that of course she was here for him. Of course this was the twenty-seven-year-old version of that kiss. He pressed his hips deeper into the mattress, trying to cut off blood flow to his cock, but it only excited him.

Elena—in his bed—excited him.

"The sofa," she whispered, but wasn't looking at him. Liar, he wanted to say and lean over to press his lips to the sweet swell of her breasts over the edge of the tank top she wore. He wanted to curve his hand along the back of her leg to her ass and he wanted to pull her against him. Flush. Tight. So she couldn't breathe without tasting him.

It was ridiculous, she was in no shape for anything that was running through his head.

He arched his hips into the mattress, searching for pain or relief he couldn't say and he knew he had to get out of there.

"I will take you back to your bed," he breathed but Elena put a hand against his arm and he stopped on a dime. Everything. His heart, his lungs. His brain. Everything just stopped so it could concentrate on her touch.

"Don't…I mean…you don't have to. I just want to stay here for a moment." The moon was so full, so bright, he could see her eyes, the curls against her neck.

They laid there connected by her hand and his inability to move and every single thought Damon had about her that he never should have had. That kiss in the hallway ten years ago circled them as if looking for a place to land.

Her thumb brushed the crease of his inside elbow and all that blood waiting for direction pounded in his veins, flooded into his cock, and Damon bit his back teeth against the need to groan. He clenched his hands against the need to touch her.

As he watched, her mouth parted, her lips damp, her eyes wide.

Elena looked like the kid she had been.

But she was a woman and she knew what was happening between them. The dark lust that coloured their atmosphere.

"You are leaving," she said. "Tomorrow."

 _Ahhh…that explains the courage. The ambush,_ Damon thought.

But he wasn't leaving; she just didn't know that yet. Maybe if he were, he would take her up on the invitation in her eyes. He would give in to the desperate pounding ache in his body to touch her, to kiss her.

 _But you are not leaving._

 _And this can't happen again._

"What are you asking for, Elena?" There was an edge of anger in his voice, because he was tired of being the reasonable one. When all he wanted was to ease deep into her and feel her breaking over him, like a wave constantly coming back for more.

"Nothing—"

"Don't lie. Don't sneak into my bed and say you are not asking for something."

Elena pulled her fingers away but Damon grabbed them. Too hard maybe, because she gasped. Inside his palm her fingers twitched.

They were both breathing hard, breathing like people in a race.

"I just…I just wanted to be close…to you," she finally breathed.

"Is that how you ask to be fucked?"

Elena gasped, shocked or turned on, Damon wasn't sure, could barely filter through his own reactions. The lust and fury and desire and grief that swirled in him.

Oh God, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to push her back against those pillows and fuck her.

Instead Damon took her hand and pressed a chaste, hungry, fervent kiss against the hot tips of her fingers.

"Go to sleep," he told her and stood in a rush to go out to the living room.

x x x

Elena had a lot of experience with shame. It was an old friend. She knew it inside and out. Shame for not being like her family, for not being what her mother thought she should be. Shame for being rich in a refugee camp. Shame for throwing herself at Damon, and her broken gay-dar, and the way she couldn't seem to be knowing and casual about her body the way other women were.

But wanting to be, so badly, that she concocted outrageous fantasies where men just forced pleasure on her, just overcome all of her worries and sensibilities and doubts and allowed her to live in the moment.

And even after Yeri, she still wished Damon would turn to her and show her what she was missing.

She knew shame.

Hours after Damon had left, Elena was still staring at the ceilings—but she didn't feel shame.

 _Is that how you ask to be fucked?_

Those words, they hummed through her like a hive of bees.

She wished she felt ashamed, shame would be familiar, because what was filling her right now was the opposite.

She was…on fire.

On fire and smiling.

It took her awhile of burning inside out last night to realize why she wasn't ashamed. She had crawled into his bed, only to chase him out of it, and that was a pretty shameful thing.

And pretending that she had gone there for anything other than to be close to him was ridiculous.

The sofa? Please. That fooled no one.

It was as lame a teenager move as had ever been perpetrated.

And honestly, she should be ashamed.

But Damon wanted her.

He had been hard and hot and nearly wild with it. As wild as she had ever seen him.

He didn't walk out of that room last night because he didn't want her, because he wasn't interested. He walked out for different, infuriatingly Damon reasons that probably had more to do with her injuries and being hired to protect her and whatever it was that made him believe they weren't friends years ago.

And now he was in the kitchen making her breakfast.

Listening to him cook, the clang of dishes and sizzle of bacon, Elena realized she knew friendship as much as she knew shame. She knew every side of friendship, good, bad, lopsided, all of it.

Damon didn't.

And they had been friends.

And last night, that look in his eyes, that kiss against fingers that still pulsed in her memory, those things told a truth.

They were friends—and he wanted her.

And he was cooking bacon.

 _Honestly, things are kind of going my way here._

Smiling, Elena walked into the kitchen, feeling pretty confident.

"You are awake," Damon said, turning away from the stove.

"Hard to sleep with bacon cooking."

"I have coffee, too."

"Full service again?"

There was a glass of juice sat on the kitchen table. Two small pills beside it.

"I don't think I want the pain meds anymore," Elena said.

"Really?"

"I hurt, but I would rather feel it than keep sleeping days away."

Damon nodded and there was no ignoring the pride in his eyes.

As Elena sat, she pushed her hair away from her face, flipped it so it lay down her back in one long twist. A plate with scrambled eggs and two pieces of bacon was slid on the table in front of her.

"This looks great."

"I'm no Rebekah, but I can scramble an egg."

It was obvious Damon was working hard now, trying to make things smooth. How novel. She had never seen him like this.

Damon didn't sit on the other chair, he took his cup of coffee and leaned against the fridge.

"We need to talk," he said.

Elena fought the blush rising up her chest. Not ashamed, but not totally worldly either.

"If it is about last night—"

"It is not." He was decisive and she narrowed her eyes at him. "Your parents released a statement saying you were resting at your family home in Richmond. It was all over the news last night."

"Great," Elena said and picked up a piece of bacon. "The heat is off."

Damon shook his head. "Not so great. The camera guys we saw at Rebekah's cafe are in town filming a reality show. And the guy in the Red Sox hat?"

Elena nodded, remembering him.

"His name is Gary. After the news story last night, he knew it was you in the café."

"How do you know he knew?"

"Elena, it is my job."

"Did he say something?"

"No."

"Then you don't know."

"Elena, I know." Damon had a whole bodyguard-vibe thing going, so she didn't roll her eyes. "I also had to tell Stefan and Rebekah."

"Why?"

"Because you told Rebekah about the pirates."

Elena had sort of a dim recollection of making pirate noises around Rebekah. Strange.

"Okay, so what does that mean?"

"If you are here, I'm here."

"What?"

"I'm staying as long as you do."

Elena could only gape at Damon. It was strange to be so delighted and so freaked out by the idea.

"Because three people know who I am?"

"No, because one person has access to a lot of cameras and I don't trust him."

"So how about if I ask him not to do anything."

"You can't be that naive."

"You would be surprised, Damon, what people will do if you just ask nicely."

"You won't be getting within ten feet of that guy," Damon said. "And since you are not my boss, I'm staying."

Elena took another sip of her coffee, trying to hide her smile.

"But we are going to have some rules," he said.

"Okay."

"No more blabbing to people about your story. And I will be out of the house during most of the days."

Elena set down her coffee cup with a thunk. "So, I can't talk to anyone and you will be gone all day? I don't like your rules."

"I didn't say you can't talk—"

"Let me give you my rules," Elena said, leaning back against the chair. "I will go where I want, within reason, because I'm not a child and I appreciate the situation I'm in."

Damon nodded. "Fine."

"You don't have to be out of the house, Damon."

His blue-grey eyes met hers and she had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. "My brother wants my help in the bar," he said. "I will be there. Close enough to be here if you need me."

Elena stared at the steam rising from her coffee. It was one thing to be brave alone in the bedroom. Another to be brave out here, under his gaze. In his disturbing company.

"If this is about last night—"

"I will sleep in that small bedroom. You will sleep in my bedroom. Last night won't happen again."

Elena took another bite of bacon.

"I'm not kidding, Elena."

"You will notice I'm not arguing with you."

"No, you are sitting there like the Cheshire cat, thinking you know something I don't. Thinking you have figured something out, but Elena, you haven't."

"If you say so."

Suddenly, Damon was across the room, his hands braced on the table and his face was so close to hers.

Elena gasped with surprise, with the power of lust that charged through her system. Bacon fell from her hand.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said, his face so taut, so pained, and she felt bad for a moment, that he was somehow in pain, but then thrilled. Grossly, obscenely thrilled that she had this power over him. Over the remote and cold Damon Salvatore.

"You won't hurt me," she breathed, thinking of how Damon had washed her hair.

"I didn't hurt you ten years ago?"

 _Oh, ten years ago,_ she thought. Emotional hurt. Heartbreak. Yes, he had devastated her back then. Burned her to the ground so completely that when she grew back, she was different.

A sharp bang on the front door made Elena jump, and Damon whirled. The bang came again.

"Stay here," he said as he strode towards the front door. "Don't come out." Rattled, she followed his directions, but she stood close to the doorway just enough that she could see what was happening.

Damon moved along the side of the door, carefully lifting a corner of the curtain over its window.

For a moment, Elena saw him sag, as if his muscles could no longer hold him upright, as if the load he carried was just too heavy, and then he swung the door open.

An old man stood there, a vision in grey. Grey hair, grey shirt. Black sweat pants. His skin looked grey, too.

Not healthy was her first thought.

And angry was her second.

"Damon," the man said.

"Hi, Dad."

x x x

Six months after Damon moved into the Salvatore boarding house, Lilian got pregnant. He found her one morning on the bathroom floor. Passed out.

Damon had been six. And he had thought she was dead.

But turned out she had fainted. She did a lot of that for a month. And then she did a lot of bleeding. And then his mother, whom he had cared the most, who had saved him from his fear and uncertainty, was gone. Hospitalized bed rest.

Giuseppe took him to visit a few times a week after school, but the hospital scared Damon. Seeing Lilian so pale and weak, trying so hard to pretend that everything was okay, scared him.

Being alone in the house with Giuseppe—who was quiet and stern-faced and never hugged him like Lilian did, didn't tuck him in, didn't play with him, or talk to him about what was happening—scared him.

And then she got worse and Giuseppe started spending the nights at the hospital, leaving Damon in the house with a babysitter who watched TV and talked on the phone.

He was six and he had been through some really bad stuff and he knew in his heart he had no business complaining, because his sheets were clean and the food was good and no one was hitting him, or yelling at him.

But Damon had been lonely. Worried. Anxious. And unsafe in a way that was so fundamental no clean sheets would make him feel better.

The silence felt like a threat. A judgment.

 _You don't belong here. This is not for you_. _It is only a matter of time before you will lose your mother and you will be alone._

One night Giuseppe didn't go to the hospital and Damon had been so excited. Happy. Giuseppe had made hot dogs and beans in the microwave. But dinner had been so silent, each silent minute worse than the last. Damon did the dishes, put them away, brushed his teeth, and went to bed, all without having to be told or asked or even looked at.

That was a skill he had perfected—vanishing.

That night, he had kept his light on when he went to bed, waiting for Giuseppe to come read him a story, or better yet, sit on the edge of the bed and tell him Lilian would be okay. And when he heard Giuseppe's footsteps in the hallway, he held his breath, light-headed with hope.

 _Everything will be okay,_ Damon had thought.

Giuseppe had pushed open the door, the bedside table light cutting across his stern face, slicing it into pieces. He had opened his mouth, shut it. Glanced down at his feet. Minutes seemed to pass. Hours. Until finally he looked up and said:

"You are fine."

It wasn't a question. It had been a decree, a need by a man with too much on his hands. I need you to be fine, to not require anything from me that I can't give.

"Yeah," Damon had lied. He had turned off his light, rolled onto his side, and never spent another minute wishing for more from Giuseppe.

Except for moments like these, when the sight of the old man, sudden and unexpected, detonated a loneliness in him that was catastrophic, tore down everything, left him reeling.

 _I'm fine,_ Damon thought. _I'm fine. I am._

"Can I come in?" Giuseppe asked, standing at the front door.

"Yes. Of course."

Giuseppe stepped inside and for the first time, Damon noticed he was using a cane. Instinctively, Damon reached out to help him over the threshold but Giuseppe was already past him.

"Stefan cleaned the place up."

Damon didn't know how to respond to that so he said nothing.

"How long have you been here?" Giuseppe asked.

"A few days."

"Heard you had a girl here."

A girl? he thought. Was this the '40s?

"Stefan is real talkative."

Under woolly brows, Giuseppe's eyes met his. "You could have told me. You know, you could stay with me."

How totally unprecedented that would be. Since Lilian had died, since after the Corps and the injury, Damon had never come home to Dad. Never stayed with him. Never really thought he was welcome. Wasn't at all convinced of it now.

"I'm working." He walked towards the sofa. "You want to sit down?"

"No."

"Want something to drink?" Damon looked over his shoulder, to see Giuseppe shake his head. _Then why are you here,_ he wanted to yell. But that would break the mould they were cast in. The mould they had been cast in since he was six and Lilian got pregnant and everything became so strange.

 _Don't ask him for anything._

"It is Tuesday," Giuseppe said.

Damon looked down on his feet, unsure of what the old man's point was.

"The Grill is closed on Tuesday and Stefan comes over for dinner. We watch the Cards if they are playing." Damon's head jerked up. His dad was working sideways toward his point. A family dinner. He had a lurching feeling, like he was going down familiar steps in the dark only to lose count and the ground was farther away than expected.

"I…ah…I told you, I'm working."

"You could bring her. Stefan will behave."

"Right."

Damon glanced over his shoulder in time to see Giuseppe's lip curve—it was the closest they had come to sharing a joke in years. Giuseppe shuffled towards the fireplace and Damon wondered when the cane had come into play, because the old man was leaning on it hard. And his face looked pale.

"Stefan is going to pick up fried chicken from Rebekah's."

"Are you sure you should be having that?"

"I'm sure you don't really care."

Damon blinked, surprised, not so much by the words, but the tone. Giuseppe was angry. The old man turned away, high colour creeping up his neck.

"It is dinner, Damon. Not a doctor's appointment. Come, or don't." Giuseppe started to walk towards the door and Damon reached over to open it for him, relieved just to have the impromptu visit over.

But Elena stepped into the living room. "Hey."

"Dear God," Giuseppe breathed, no doubt in reaction to the bruises turning yellow on her face. Or maybe Giuseppe saw through it to the woman beneath. Hard to say.

"I will be there," Elena said.

Oh great.

"You want to come for dinner?" Giuseppe asked.

"If I'm invited."

"You are not," Damon said. "You are supposed to be lying low."

Elena shot Damon a hot gaze that told him he should be ashamed of himself, but she didn't understand the deeply damaged nature of his relationship with Giuseppe and so he ignored her censure.

"Are you going to take my picture and sell it to the press?" she asked Giuseppe.

"No," his father replied.

"Wonderful. Can I come to dinner?" she asked Giuseppe, who, miracle of miracles, actually smiled.

"I would love to have you."

"What time?"

"Six. Stefan will be there."

"I can't wait to meet him." Both of them turned to Damon, who was swimming hard against the tide. But in the end, he threw his hands in the air and let himself get swept away.

"Fine."

x x x

"Don't you want to prep me?" Elena asked as they walked out of the Salvatore boarding house.

"Prep you? No. I want to drive."

"That is crazy, it is two blocks."

Staring out at the trees and bushes that must, in his imagination, hide hundreds of photographers, Damon was silent.

"There is nothing you want to warn me about with your family?"

"Like what?"

"Like don't bring up politics or mention Stefan's lazy eye."

"Stefan doesn't have a lazy eye."

"I wouldn't know. This is what you need to tell me."

Damon's lip curled and he shook his head. So easy to tease, Elena thought, and braved putting a hand on his arm. Immediately he bent it, guiding her hand to his elbow. The perfect escort.

A perfect, begrudging escort for a woman in a grey jersey skirt and a thin yellow cardigan sweater. Her shoes were an old pair of Keds Elena didn't remember packing.

Damon must have. While she had been sleeping in her grandmother's apartment, he must have gathered up some more of her things. Shoes, underwear, all of her camisole tank tops so she wouldn't have to wear a bra.

Looking at him, with his edges and his sharpness and his silence, she realized anew what she had known when she was seventeen—He had such a hidden, wild heart.

"What about your mum?"

If Elena hadn't been touching him she wouldn't have noticed his pause, his minuscule flinch.

"My mum? What about her?"

"Is she going to be there?"

Damon shook his head, looking back at the trees, away from her. "She died seven years ago. Cancer."

Oh. He said it like he was all right with it. Like the words had no tie to the reality of his grief. Perhaps he had buried it, like he seemed to bury so many other things.

What a relief it would be to comfort him, to run her hand across the clenched muscles of his jaw. Hug him, perhaps, if he'd let her. Because at this moment he looked like what he needed most in this world was a hug.

"I'm so sorry." Lame words but all she had.

"We were, too. I mean, it was hard. She was a pretty special woman and I think without her…we all just became lost."

"Lost?"

Damon laughed, a quiet humph in his chest. "You will see." He stopped so suddenly in front of a small beige house that Elena got pulled back by her hand in his elbow.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his eyes took in the overgrown bushes and long grass. A downspout had come unattached from the eve's trough.

There was something stark under Damon's expression—almost as if he was braced for an awful inevitable.

Instantly, Elena regretted stepping into the living room and forcing this issue. But Giuseppe had been, under his gruffness and his passive-aggressive posturing, so…vulnerable. Perhaps it was the cane, or his grey complexion, but she hadn't been able to let him walk out that door without agreeing to dinner.

And Damon with his stillness was equally vulnerable. In a totally different way, of course. Like an avalanche just before it happened, when everything was so still, but under the surface breaking to pieces.

"Are you okay with this?" Elena asked.

"A little late to wonder that now," Damon muttered and started up the cracked sidewalk to the front door. Before they even got to the stoop the storm door opened and a man with a pale complexion, broad forehead, angular jawline and a pair deep-set, forest green eyes stood there. A smile flashed across his face so bright and so alive that it took a second for him to wrestle it under control.

Elena couldn't help but smile back at him.

"Wow," the man said, opening the screen. He wore blue jeans and perhaps the ugliest plaid button-down shirt ever created. Red and black and brown with green thrown in. But his eyes were twinkling in a universal symbol she recognized. "That is quite a shiner.

"Thank you," she said. "That is quite a shirt."

It was silent for a moment and Elena felt a hot blush sear her face. Damon made a choking noise beside her and she opened her mouth to apologize, but Stefan threw back his head and howled.

"Oh, you are going to be fun," he said, holding out his hand. She let go of Damon and grabbed on to Stefan, who shook her hand as he helped her up the stairs. "I'm Stefan," he said. "Damon's brother."

"I'm Elena…" she started. She didn't want to say her last name. She had been enjoying her anonymity.

"I know who you are, Elena. Damon told me. And it is a pleasure to meet you." Stefan smiled at her and turned to lead her into the house. "I hope you are hungry. We have got Rebekah's fried chicken and I have mixed up a batch of my famous red beans and rice."

"Famous?" Giuseppe asked and Elena turned to see Damon's father sitting in an easy chair just inside the room. "You never made them before in your life."

"About to be famous, then," he said and winked at Elena, which cemented it. She loved Stefan. Sometimes friendship was like that—immediate and sticky.

"Can't wait," she said.

She realized Damon hadn't come in, that he still stood on the stoop, watching them through the open door.

"Come on in, Damon," Stefan said. "I got you two thighs and a bunch of Rebekah's coleslaw." Your favourites, was the subtext. I got you everything you like because I love you.

"Sounds good, but I'm going to fix some of this stuff up out here." Damon jerked his thumb back at the yard.

"What stuff?" Stefan asked.

"The downspout, the bushes, the grass."

"You are going to mow the lawn?" Stefan asked. "Now?"

Damon nodded.

Stefan stepped forward. "It is dinner, Damon," he whispered. "Do you know how happy Dad is that you agreed to come?"

"I didn't agree," Damon whispered back, "she did. And the work needs to be done." The tone was totally accusatory and Stefan snapped his head back like he had been slapped.

"Damon," Elena whispered, "don't—"

"You"—his eyes, when they turned towards her, were alive with heat and anger—"have done enough."

And then Damon was gone, off the landing and around the side of the house. Both Elena and Stefan sagged for a moment as if they had been walking hard against a stiff wind only to have it suddenly stop.

"Quite a family, huh?" Stefan asked.

"I have seen worse," Elena said and patted his shoulder. "But I have never seen a worse shirt."

Stefan laughed wearily and finally stood up, his shoulders straight. "Come on in," he said. "You want some tea?"

"Tea would be great," she answered and Stefan took off across the beige carpet into a dark kitchen. On the wall around the television there were dozens of picture frames. Some of the photos were slipping down in the glass. One was blank—as she walked by she looked at each one.

There was Giuseppe as a young groom in a black tux and a skinny bow tie, his hair slicked back from his head, standing next to a beautiful woman with dark brown hair piled up on her head, carrying a bouquet of white chrysanthemums. There were pictures of the two of them, young and sleek in swimsuits near a familiar body of water, and Elena realized it was the river where Damon had taken her.

And then there was Lillian standing next to a stiff-legged little boy in too short pants and a Star Wars T-shirt with the Darth Vader decal flaking off. The boy looked stiffed and uneasy, but she was smiling hard enough for the both of them. The boy had obviously taken after Lillian's in terms of looks and physical appearance, as there was a very strong physical resemblance between the two of them.

Damon, she realized. She wondered what Damon had thought about his mother being remarried.

There were a few more of photos of Damon with Giuseppe, fishing poles in hand. Damon seemed less scared and in one he was looking toward Giuseppe, about to smile.

But the next photo was a family picture, and a much older Damon, no smile on the horizon, stood distant from the group of Giuseppe, Lillian and Stefan, who was a toddler. Looking at the rest of the pictures she realized that was a pattern that kept repeating—Damon just off to the side. Damon watching his little brother. Damon, some trophy in hand, not smiling, staring at the camera with vacant eyes.

"I'm Damon's stepfather. In case you were wondering," Giuseppe volunteered and Elena jumped, having forgotten he was there.

Giuseppe sat in his chair in a sea of beige, his hand constantly worrying the pale wooden handle of his cane. His stillness seemed poised on the edge of something.

The whole house had the air of suspension, as if it had been frozen and kept in this state. Nothing was dusty or dirty, the only thing cluttered was the table by his chair. It was as if, other than the photos, the house had been wiped clean of any sign of life.

"He told me," she said, stepping carefully toward him.

"I'm surprised he told you anything about us."

 _That makes two of us,_ Elena thought.

"You want to sit down?" He jabbed in the direction of the couch with the end of his cane.

"Thank you," she said and perched on the edge of the nappy beige couch. It gave every impression that it would swallow her whole if she leaned back.

"He wouldn't be here if you hadn't come out of the kitchen."

"Now, how do we get him in from the lawn?" She tried for a joke, but Giuseppe didn't laugh.

"His mother was the only one who could get him to do what she wanted."

Although clearly they didn't share any bloodlines, they were similar men, Giuseppe and Damon. So she braved the icy stillness around him, the sorrow he wore like armour, and put her hand over his on the cane.

He started and glanced away at the picture window in front, where they could see clumps of leaves raining down from the gutters Damon was obviously cleaning.

"There is a strong resemblance between Damon and his mother."

Silent, Giuseppe nodded, his face momentarily a mess of wrinkles and eyebrows. Oh, he needed a hug, too. What was with these guys?

"Lillian was a special woman," Giuseppe said with a mighty sniff. He twitched his hand away from hers. "I fell for her the moment I laid my eyes on her."

"So you decided to marry her?"

"Yes. I wanted her to be my wife. I wanted to take care of her. Lillian was kind of worried about Damon not accepting us. But I reassured her I would look after the two of them because I know how important Damon was to her. Damon…..was hers."

 _Was he yours?_ she wondered. _Is that what the distance is between you?_

"Damon basically worshiped Lillian and everything about her." His smile was quick and sad.

"When did you have Stefan?" Elena asked.

"Lillian got pregnant six months after we got married. I was thrilled." He shook his head, like he still couldn't believe it. "But it was a real bad pregnancy. High risk. She spent most of it in the hospital. Got to the point I stayed with her at the end. And then after Stefan was born, they were still in the hospital for another three months. And Stefan spent the first year in and out on account of his lungs."

"And Damon?" she asked, all the pieces coming together for her.

"Alone, mostly." Giuseppe looked away, out the window to where Damon was moving the ladder. "Almost a full year he spent mostly alone in the Salvatore boarding house, he was like a ghost, so quiet. He got himself to school, packed his own lunch. Cleaned his clothes." His voice broke and he coughed heavily into his hand.

Elena had seen tribal elders in the camps who sat the way Giuseppe did, proud and ruined at the same time. Survival sometimes had a terrible cost.

"You are telling all our secrets, Dad?" Stefan asked, standing in the doorway with two glasses of tea.

"She asked." Giuseppe shrugged.

Stefan handed her a glass of tea and then he took another glass, this one with a straw in it, to his father. Giuseppe reached for it with shaking hands.

"I got it, Dad," Stefan whispered and Giuseppe leaned forward and took a sip from the straw.

"It is not sweet," Giuseppe said.

"Doctor said you had to cut back. Sweet tea isn't for you anymore."

"Don't get old, Elena," Giuseppe said. "Everything that makes life enjoyable gets taken away from you."

"Come on now, you haven't tried my red beans and rice. It might be your new reason to live." Stefan set the glass down on the small table cluttered with prescription bottles and crossword puzzles.

Elena glanced at her own tea, at the small ripples across its surface from her own shaking.

"I remember being five," Stefan said, "and asking mum why Damon was different from other kids. Because he was…I mean, he was so old. Like old man old. And he was twelve. He didn't laugh, didn't joke around, or even play, really. He just…watched. And he watched me all the time, like at any minute I was going to fall down in convulsions. And mum told me that some people don't know how to express their love…"

Giuseppe made a scoffing sound in his throat.

"You think I'm wrong?" Stefan asked.

"He is a full-grown man, Stefan. Not a kid."

"You look at that guy out there so messed up he can't even come inside and you tell me he—"

"Doesn't want to be loved," Giuseppe barked. "At least not by us." His runny blue eyes fixed on Elena. "Probably not by anyone."


	10. Chapter 10

"Those beans were awful," Elena said, her hand securely settled into the crook of Damon's elbow. As they walked her hip brushed his and Damon felt the contact, like electricity up the side of his body. Half of him was lit up, the other half was jealous. "They were still hard."

"I told you not to try them." Damon tried to ease away from her, because honest to God there was only so much a man could take—but it felt awkward so he stopped.

"That would have been rude."

"Well, now you are poisoned so…"

It was dusk and the bats were swooping over the tops of the trees. Damon had forgotten about the bats. Suddenly he remembered spending the night at the river with Stefan when they were kids and a bat had swooped down and flown right into his head.

Funniest damn thing Damon had ever seen.

"Are you smiling at my discomfort?"

"No." Damon shook his head. "Just remembering the time Stefan got attacked by a bat."

Elena was quiet for a moment. And he was reminded of being a kid and pretending to sleep when Lillian checked in on him at night. How aware he had been of her standing in the doorway while he pretended to sleep.

He was aware of Elena in the same way right now. He didn't know what he was supposed to do with the burden of her expectation.

"Sounds hilarious," she finally said, and he could breathe again.

In his back pocket his phone vibrated.

"Is that your phone?" Elena asked and he nodded. "Are you…going to answer it?"

"It is my boss at the security company. He has been calling all day."

"Do you need to get back to work?" Elena asked and tugged on his arm to get him to stop. "Oh my God, Damon, I told you, you didn't have to stay."

"Calm down, Elena. I am doing everything I need to be doing."

They turned the corner and the Salvatore boarding house was in sight down the road.

"Stefan seemed pretty happy about you helping do some work in the garage," she said.

"Seemed?" Damon asked, arching an eyebrow at her. Stefan had all but done cartwheels despite Damon explaining it was only for a while.

"I had a good time tonight," Elena said. "I like your brother."

Damon nodded. _I like him, too,_ he thought.

Stefan had been funny and engaging and taking shots at himself and Damon until even Giuseppe had to smile. And for a while it had been about as normal a family dinner as one could ever imagine.

As he had ever imagined.

But then his father had started coughing, deep hard coughs like they were coming up from his toes and Stefan had helped him off to the bedroom, leaving Damon and Elena stunned at the kitchen table.

"You are worried about your dad?"

Damon dropped her hand and put some distance between them, because enough was enough. He couldn't talk about his father and his brother and touch her skin and pretend like this was all part of his life. It wasn't. None of this was what he was used to, or wanted to get used to.

"Stefan has got it under control," he said. Elena stopped and her eyes shamed him. There had been a lot of pills on that table. And it all seemed pretty unorganized. He lifted his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I will talk to him."

"Your dad told me about your mother getting pregnant with Stefan, about how you were left alone for so long."

"He and Stefan were real chatty." Damon stepped over a giant cracked section of sidewalk and then reached out a hand to help her.

"It must have been hard."

"I was safe. Well fed. Had my own room."

"Were you lonely?"

Lonely didn't cover it. Lonely barely scratched the surface. "I had babysitters."

"You know," Elena said, real casual, "I used to have this fantasy of my mum apologizing to me for the way she treated me when I was a kid. She would tell me, with tears in her eyes, that I was good enough to be her daughter. And then I dreamt that she would come to Africa and see the work that I was doing and she would tell me how proud she was. And then I just wanted her to send me a birthday card. Or call me at Christmas. The older I got the less I required from her to make what was wrong between us right. When we saw her in New York the other day, I honest to God thought, if she warms up that soup herself and brings it to me—maybe with an apron on—it will be done. I will forgive her."

"What is your point, Elena?"

"What will it take for you to forgive Giuseppe?"

"There is nothing to forgive."

"Then why are you punishing him?"

"I'm not. He took care of my mother and me. I hold no grudge."

"You could barely sit in that kitchen, Damon. You hated being there, everyone knew it."

"Not every family is close, you know that better than most. Giuseppe and I aren't, we never have been. It is what it is."

"Bullshit," Elena whispered.

They walked towards the front door before they came to a halt. Damon unlocked the door and followed her into the hushed quiet of the house.

The night felt too small around him, the house with its shadows and quiet was crushing.

Her questions were crushing. He lived thousands of miles away from his family so he didn't have to be reminded of how damaged they were.

"Are you all right?" Damon asked and Elena turned, her brown hair falling down over her yellow cardigan. The cardigan did her no favours, it made her bruises look worse, highlighted how skinny she was, and it didn't matter—he wanted to touch her. Push those buttons from the holes and kiss the injuries, kiss away every moment of pain and fear she had ever felt.

And when her deep brown eyes met his it felt like she wanted to do the same—for him.

For one brief horrifying moment, Damon felt the world open up under him, a corresponding hole in his stomach.

"I'm…going to make a few phone calls," he said, jerking his thumb towards the open door. She nodded and he stepped back out into the night. Quickly, he pulled out his cell phone.

He didn't bother listening to his voicemail, just hit return for the last incoming number.

"Jesus Christ," Clint said as he answered. "Look who has come out of his hole."

"Sorry," Damon said, feeling a pinch of guilt. For the last ten years Damon had lived his job. Or rather his life had been reduced to his job—he had no friends, really. Not much family. No wife, kids. It was just work. As a private contractor to Clint's business he had taken a lot of pride in the fact that he was a good Marine. Reliable. Accessible and always ready to deploy. This was the first time he hadn't answered Clint's calls immediately. "I have been busy. What's up?"

"Well, Senator Rawlings is headed over to Saudi Arabia—"

"What?"

"Part of a Yetarzikstan peace negotiations team. Top secret."

"That is nonsense." Rawlings wouldn't stick his neck out for peace. Or negotiations. He was cooking up something else…selling weapons to the rebels? Maybe.

"Probably, but he wants a private detail."

"When is he leaving?"

"In five days. We will need you back tomorrow for briefings."

Weird how relieved Damon felt, how happy he was to not be going. Not merely because it was Yetarzikstan—no one wanted to go there—but also because he had no desire to be a protector of Senator Rawlings' sticky little web of deceit and lies. "I can't."

"You can't?"

"That is what I said."

Clint was silent for a second. "You know it is not any of my business, but that visitor in Cook's Bay…Jeremy Gilbert?"

"You are right; it is not your business. I'm sorry I can't help you out this time, but I will call you when I get back to D.C." Damon lifted the phone away from his ear and was about to disconnect when he heard Clint say: "Wait—wait, man. Just wait a second."

"What?"

"Look, I wanted to talk to you about this when you got back, but I need to start making some decisions around here and I can't wait forever." Clint took a deep breath. "I want to offer you the chance to be partner."

"Partner? In the company?"

"You are too smart for these assignments, Damon. I need your brain on logistics. Planning." Clint rambled on a little longer about new contracts and moneymaking potential.

Damon was a cog in the wheel, a piece of the machinery. It was all he had been and it was where he was comfortable. But he was getting older, and with his knee, getting out of the field made sense.

"Damon, are you there?"

"Yeah."

"I don't need an answer now, but I want you to think about it."

"I will," he said, although he wasn't sure what he would think about it.

"Can you give me an idea when you will be back?"

Damon thought about Giuseppe and the coughing, Elena's bruises and how long they would take to go away. He scrubbed at his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair, locked into a place and a timeline that was already making him crazy. "A week. Maybe two."

"Are you okay?"

What a weird question from Clint. "Fine. It is just some family stuff. I will be in touch," Damon said and hung up.

He watched the black edge of night advance across the sky until all the light was eradicated.

A partner. Responsibility. He didn't need the money, he had more than enough of that. And it would be nice to not be the guy on the midnight shift of a twenty-four-hour detail.

And Yetarzikstan…what a relief to avoid places like Yetarzikstan. Once upon a time he would have eagerly jumped on that detail. The danger of it would have been exciting.

 _I'm getting old,_ he thought.

And sitting behind a desk doing the planning was a smart step for him. For his knee.

But did he want it? His wants had all been survival-based. Even wanting his dad, his real dad, had been survival. No six-year-old could imagine surviving without the person who tucked him in at night.

And then he wanted to have a family again. He wanted to be a normal boy with a father and a mother.

And then when it all seemed to happen, all his wants met by Giuseppe who was willing to marry his mother. Then Stefan came and Damon was left alone for that year, when Lillian and Stefan had both nearly died a few times.

And it seemed like it had all been there, everything he should be grateful for—a family, a home, even a brother, but it had been wrong somehow, misaligned. How could he ask for more when his brother was so sick? His mother so tired?

He had wanted the Marines, but that had ended so fast he practically missed it.

So now he didn't know what to want.

 _You are thirty-five years old. You should want something more than what you have got,_ Damon said to himself.

That was what people did. They wanted more. Stefan wanted the bar.

What did he want?

Elena.

He wanted Elena.

Not that the wanting ever did him any good.

Tired of himself, Damon walked back into the house. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and popped the lid into the sink, where it rattled around before climbing upstairs.

The door to the bedroom was open, letting a wedge of light into the shadowed hallway.

He could hear Elena in there, moving around, humming something to herself, and he wasn't entirely sure he could stay in this house with her. Things felt…loose in him. Dangerously insecure.

"Shit, damn, asshole, God, mother, holy—" Elena yelled and he moved into the room in a heartbeat.

"Are you okay?" he asked, outside the bathroom door.

"Ouch!" she cried, but no longer sounded so frantic. "No."

With his bottle of beer he pushed open the door, only to find her standing in front of the mirror, her hair piled up into a knot on her head.

And wearing one of his shirts. A grey Marine Corps T-shirt that skimmed her thighs. The sleeve was rolled up under her chin.

 _She is wearing my shirt._

Never in his life had Damon ever seen anything hotter.

She was twisted around trying to pull the stitches from her arm with a pair of little nail scissors.

"What the hell, Elena?" He put the beer down on the sink and snatched the clippers from her hand. "Are you nuts?"

"No," Elena said, her eyes meeting his in the mirror. "I'm not nuts, but it itches. Like mad. And it has been over a week, Damon. The itching means it has healed."

"What kind of bullshit medical opinion is that?" he asked.

"Look at it," she said, lifting her arm into his face. "It is good."

Damon didn't have to look, he knew it was good. The stitches had been ready to come out the last time he saw them.

"I will do it," he said.

Elena nearly sagged against the counter. "Good, I couldn't see what I was doing. Kept stabbing myself."

"Why didn't you ask me?" He carefully pressed the sharp edge of the scissors under the small black stitch. It pulled taut and snapped, the fragments falling loose on her pale arm.

Elena was silent and that seemed to be plenty answer. The room was a hushed white cocoon of intimacy and as aware as he was of his own desire for her, he was doubly aware of hers for him.

 _She wants you. She is not seventeen anymore. Why are you fighting this so hard?_

Carefully, Damon clipped away another stitch and his whole world was focused down to her—the skin of her arm; the black lace of the stitches; her waiting, expectant face in the mirror—and it was so damn hard pretending he felt nothing. So damn hard swallowing everything down so far and so deep that he didn't even know what the hell he wanted!

"How did this happen?" he asked, changing the subject almost violently. "This slice on your arm?"

"I wouldn't let go of April and Yeri cut me with the knife. His first warning."

His fingers tightened around the scissors but he kept his touch gentle. Quick.

"I should have shot him when I had the chance," Damon muttered.

"I had about a hundred murder fantasies about him."

"Which was your favourite?"

"Castration and a long slow bleed out."

"A classic."

They smiled at each other in the mirror until he cleared his throat and got back to work on her arm.

"Killing him wouldn't have changed anything," Elena said. "There would have been another Yeri to take his place and perhaps ten more after that."

"Are you saying you forgive him?"

"No." Her eyes were round and big in her face and he realized how tired she must be. How dinner must have wiped her out. "But I understand him in a way. I saw a thousand versions of him in Dadaab."

Even as he did it, even as his hand lifted from her arm to her face, he told himself to stop. To put the clippers down, grab his beer and the rest of the six-pack, and go sit on the sofa until he got drunk.

But Damon didn't.

 _I want her. I have always wanted her and she is here and she wants me, too._

There was part of him that totally understood that the past was the past, that if he wanted he could step over the fences he had built around himself. He wasn't a total emotional cripple.

He didn't have to punish himself for the mistakes Giuseppe had made when Damon was a kid.

But the unknown on the other side of that fence was what kept him locked in. Who was he outside of these narrow boundaries? Who was he if he wanted something? Needed something? And actually took it?

And what would happen when it was taken away? Because it would be.

Elena inspired him to try and find out. To test his courage against the scary dark of the unknown him.

His hand without the clippers cupped her cheek, his thumb at her chin, and when Elena gasped—her eyes dilating past interested into instantly and totally aroused—his thumb touched her lip.

And Damon went from interested to instantly and totally aroused as well and he knew the moment to leave was past. He was here, right here. Touching Elena.

"You are so special," he told her, because he knew no one probably ever had. Or maybe millions of people had, maybe every lover and friend threw roses at her as she walked, but he had never told her how special she was and that seemed like something that had to be rectified immediately. "You really are."

Her eyelids lowered slightly and her smile wobbled. "So are you," Elena whispered and her hand came up to his elbow; he felt her fingers, cool and small, slip under the sleeve of his T-shirt, slide over the sensitive skin of his arm.

That was bullshit, him being special, because if he were he wouldn't be thinking what he was thinking about her. He wouldn't be wondering if he could lift her up onto the sink and push up her—his—shirt. He wanted to cup her ass in his hands and pull her against his chest and cock until they couldn't tell who was who.

But she was injured. And Elena Gilbert. And he was supposed to be taking care of her, not fucking her on a bathroom sink.

 _Not for you._

That was why Damon was fighting this—because it was the right thing to do.

He dropped his hands.

"Damon—"

"Stitches are out. Good night."

x x x

Elena was going to do it again; throw herself at him. Kiss him. It would seem fate had a crazy sense of humour and demanded a repeat performance of the most outrageously humiliating moment of her life.

"No," she said, pleased that her voice was as firm as it was.

But Damon didn't stop; he just kept walking, his broad shoulders passing from the bright bathroom into the dark bedroom.

"Damon!" She walked after him. If she weren't so sure, so totally and completely sure that he wanted her as badly as she wanted him, she wouldn't do this.

But the knowledge was alive in her.

Damon wanted her.

Elena grabbed his elbow and was immediately caught up in the heat and strength of the man as he turned, put his hands at her hips, and walked her backward till she was pressed against the bathroom door.

It didn't hurt, none of it hurt, he was so gentle, so controlled.

But barely.

Oh, that shouldn't be so exciting. But it was. Her body was liquid with excitement. Her breasts ached, between her legs she hurt, she wanted him so badly.

"What do you want?" His hot breath poured over her lips and she wanted to breathe him in, open her mouth and suck him into her body.

"You," Elena whispered, her voice shaking because the inferno was burning down her body. "Just you, Damon, please…"

The growl from his throat was the end; she couldn't take any more, so she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. It wasn't careful or tentative or sweet. It was needy and angry and scared.

Elena kissed him with her own wild heart. Each emotion that she was scared of or couldn't figure out or didn't have room for in her life, she released it from the box and used it against him.

She lifted her fingers to his hair and gathered it into her hands. Damon groaned and surged forward, pressing her tighter against the door.

Her ribs felt that but she swallowed the pain, because if she let on, he would stop. And she didn't want this to stop.

His tongue pushed into her mouth and she let it, she pushed her tongue into his mouth, and there was no way she could tell who was kissing whom. He crouched and lifted her until they were pressed together, hard, from lips to hips and she felt his erection through his jeans and she pushed herself into it. Wanting every part of him touching every part of her. Wanting him inside of her.

Wanting him.

Elena had felt empty in her life before, she had felt the absence of love and sex, but that was nothing compared to the emptiness she felt right now. She felt empty of him. The specific explicitness of it broke her.

Damon dropped his hand to her ass and she held her breath, feeling his big wide palm over her and waiting to see what he would do next, wanting whatever it was so badly she nearly climbed up his body like it was a palm tree. She bit his tongue, sucking it hard into her mouth and he squeezed her ass with rough hands.

It was so exciting, this place, where his careful faltered and became rough and she made a sound, a whimper.

And he stopped.

"No," she whispered into his mouth. "No, Damon. Don't stop. Don't—"

Damon pulled away and the look on his face froze her. He was furious.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.

"What…what do you mean?"

"Don't play stupid, it doesn't work for you." Her head snapped back at that. Oh, Damon was really angry.

Well, she wasn't a child and she wouldn't be pushed away again because he thought she needed protecting. She was a full-grown woman who wanted to have sex. With him.

Good Lord, this shouldn't be so hard!

His eyes toured her body. Putting on his shirt had been a rare stroke of femme fatale genius.

"You have your own clothes, Elena."

"Are you talking about the way I'm dressed?" Elena tilted her head. "All my clothes are dirty. Does it bother you?" she asked, playing with the hem of his shirt.

Damon breathed in hard through his nose and she felt a surge of delight. Of glee. He was unpredictable and slightly terrifying, but he wanted her.

He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, his legs out wide in front of him.

"Come here," he whispered, beckoning her with his beer bottle before taking a sip.

It didn't even occur to her not to.

x x x

 _Don't do it,_ he thought. _Don't be so reckless._

But Elena Gilbert was the personification of reckless and so of course she crossed the room to stand between his outstretched legs.

"Take it off," Damon told her. He drank his beer, like he was settling in for a show.

Her eyelids flickered and her pink tongue touched her lips.

"Take…take what off?" Elena whispered, her eyes never straying too far from the erection in his pants.

"My shirt. The one you are wearing. Take it off." The beer bottle hit the table next to the bed with a hard thunk and she jumped. Her eyes met his, wide and disbelieving.

 _See,_ he wanted to say, _you are not cut out for this. You are no match for me. You think this is what you want, but everything I have to give you is so much less than you deserve._

He sighed. "Elena—"

Her fingers grabbed the hem and in one not-so-smooth move Elena pulled the shirt up and over her head. She was naked but for a pair of polka-dot panties. They were black. The polka dots were white.

Stupid thing to stare at. But he was reduced to stupid. With lust and surprise, Elena had made him a dumb beast.

Damon couldn't breathe. Slowly, his eyes travelled her body, those perfect round breasts with the nipples that looked so beautiful. The muscles in her stomach, clenching and unclenching as she panted. The bruises on her ribs were beginning to turn yellow around the edges, still green and purple at the centre.

His hand cramped and he realized he was holding on to the bed so hard so he wouldn't grab her. The silence stretched, broken only by her heavy, shattered breathing.

"Oh my God, Damon," Elena breathed, her hands fluttering like birds from her legs to her breasts. "Say something…" Her voice cracked and she grabbed her shirt from the floor, held it to her chest and stood ready to flee. To run, ashamed and probably scared, to the bathroom.

"No." Damon caught her by the arm and pulled her to stand in front of him, trembling between his spread knees. He pushed himself forward, his mouth inches from her belly. The silly little white bow at the top of her panties.

He could smell her arousal.

"Don't be mean," Elena whispered. "Please…"

Oh, she just killed him; just put a knife right through what was left of his heart. There were no words at his disposal to tell her how beautiful she was. How brave.

Slowly, so she could leave if she wanted, not a scared animal but a beautiful woman with the right to reject any idiot who didn't know how to behave around a woman like her, he pressed his mouth to her stomach. The small swell of it under her belly button.

Elena jerked at the touch, her body stiff, and Damon held his lips there, against her skin, waiting, eyes closed for her to run.

 _Run_ , he urged silently. _For both our sakes. Run._

But after a moment Elena sighed and imperceptibly pressed against him. Her fingers, like butterflies—or hummingbirds or anything else painfully fast and light and unsure—touched his shoulder, his hair. Her thumb brushed the edge of his ear and he was so turned on it hurt.

"You are beautiful," Damon told her, licking her skin. His hands swept up from her knees, to her thighs, over her waist, across the bruises, barely touching them, like he was a low-flying plane studying her topography, the gorgeous curves and plains of her body. And finally her breasts, warm and real and soft—his hands slipped over them, his thumbs found her nipples and he brushed against them, feeling her slight jerk. He did it again and Elena gasped.

"Every part of you is beautiful," Damon said. Risking a look up at her face, he found her staring down at him, her eyes wide and dilated, her lips parted.

Elena was past turned on. She had been planning this, orchestrating his ruin, just like she had ten years ago.

"If I touch you, will you be wet?" he whispered, looking up at her.

"Damon…" she gasped. He squeezed her nipple again and her eyes fluttered shut, her hands tightened into fists around the neck of the shirt he was wearing.

"Will you?" he asked, not letting her off the hook, because she certainly hadn't let him off. "Answer me, Elena."

"Yes. Yes, I'm…wet."

Damon bent his head, pressed his mouth to the polka dots over her sex and Elena jerked so hard he grabbed her waist to steady her. Right over her bruises, and she hissed.

Immediately he dropped his hands. He had forgotten her bruises.

But her hands in the neck of his shirt didn't let go and she jerked him forward, with surprising strength. "I'm fine," she said. "You just…startled me."

"Elena—"

"I'm an adult. You don't need to protect me from what I want. I want you. I'm wet, Damon. For you. I'm dying. For you. Are you going to do something about that?"

It was a challenge. Elena was a challenge and Damon loved it. Without looking away he lifted his hand, slid his fingers over the damp cotton between her legs.

She sagged, her neck, her back, her knees, all of her sagged. Her hands fell to her sides, but then she pulled herself back together and when she stared at him, nearly naked but proud and strong, it was the hottest thing Damon had ever seen.

"Spread your legs, honey," he breathed and Elena did, her calves hitting his knees, and he spread his legs wider to give her room. The elastic edge of the panties was easily breeched and one finger slipped into the curls between her legs.

"Ah…ah…" she gasped. Her hands flexed open and then tightened into fists, like she could only hold on to herself in this.

So Damon pulled her knee up onto the bed and she braced her hand on his shoulder. He slipped his finger inside of her, the wet, tight opening of her sex, and Elena shuddered against him.

She was so tight, a clenched fist around his finger.

"Relax," he breathed, leaning forward to kiss her breast, to find her nipple and pull it into his mouth. Damon sucked and Elena cried out and the muscles around his finger spasmed and relaxed. "You like that," he said against her skin.

"What?"

He bit her. Gently. But she still jerked in reaction.

Yeah. She liked that.

She was now arched over him, balanced on her knees, braced with her hands. He kissed her breasts, nuzzled the soft slopes, and she sighed and moaned, twitching over him.

Carefully, Damon slid another finger into her body and Elena winced and tried to pull away. For all her bravery, her body was tentative. Unsure.

He pulled the second finger away.

"Shhh," he said, sucking her nipple into his mouth. She put her head on his shoulder, her breath blowing hot and hard against the side of his face.

He ripped her underwear getting his thumb against her. Then followed her slit from where his finger was buried inside her up to the top, where her clit waited. He paused, his thumb poised just beneath it until he felt her sinking toward him, urging him closer, and then he rubbed the wide pad of his thumb against her, pressing hard at the top.

"Ha!" The sound exploded out of her. He did it again, no teasing, just hard sure strokes. "I don't…Damon…Oh God, what are you doing?"

Damon turned his head to look at her, but her eyes were squeezed shut as her body shook over him.

"I'm going to make you come," he breathed into her neck before kissing her there. He twisted his hand, his fingers. Stroked her harder with his thumb. Faster.

She coiled tight, tighter, every muscle arched over him in use, in his ear she was gasping, soft little huffing breaths.

"Come on," he breathed.

And then Elena jerked, muscles taut, her head knocking his. She made a soft keening sound in her throat and collapsed on him, her body twitching.

Her hand covered her eyes and she rolled into his lap, against his dick, and he groaned. Electrified, he pushed her down onto the bed as carefully as he could.

"Damon," she sighed, watching him with wide dreamy eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Your ribs?"

"What ribs?" Her smile was drunk and if he were in any other state he might smile back at her. But he was standing on ground that was crumbling beneath him, every second he was losing footing.

"Did I hurt you?" Damon said more clearly, and she blinked, some of the pleasure bleeding from her eyes.

"No," she said.

Good. That was good.

Damon stood, paused for a second to catch his breath, and then walked out of the bedroom.


	11. Chapter 11

Elena pushed open the house's front door, only to run into Rebekah coming in.

"Hey," she said, trying to make it sound like she wasn't escaping. But the sunglasses and John Deere cap were a clear tip-off. "Rebekah? What are you doing here?"

"Why are you breaking out of the house?"

"I'm not…what?" She laughed but Rebekah crossed her arms over her chest, not believing a moment of it, and Elena sighed. "I just want to take a walk."

"A walk?"

"I have been cooped up for days."

 _Cooped up with myself and my body and the memory of Tuesday night like a burning coal between my legs._

"Where are you heading to?" Rebekah asked.

Frankly, this was the interesting part, even to Elena. And she wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't making a huge mistake, muddying waters that had no business being muddied. And after Tuesday night, after he'd all but dumped her on the bed and run away, she had no doubt Damon would not appreciate her worming deeper in his life.

But she woke up this morning wanting to see someone else who lived on the outskirts of Damon's life.

"I want to go visit Giuseppe."

There was a history of feminine knowledge in Rebekah's dark eyes. Like she saw her mistakes and wasn't going to warn her away from them, because she knew some of them just had to be made.

"I will go with you," Rebekah said, slipping on her own sunglasses.

"You can't tell Damon."

"I suspected as much."

Rebekah turned away from the front door and waited for Elena at the driveway, who was moving slowly.

It wasn't her ribs, or at least it wasn't her ribs alone. It was her ribs in partnership with her inner thighs and lower back.

 _Can you pull a muscle having an orgasm?_ Elena thought. _Anything can happen when you are having an orgasm, right?_

"What are you doing here?" Elena asked. "Not that it is not great."

"Damon asked me to stop by, said you might be going stir-crazy."

Elena tried not to be angered by that. Damon had avoided her for two days, leaving before she woke up, not returning until she had finally fallen asleep, despite all her efforts to stay awake to talk to him. She would have thought he had been avoiding the house altogether if it weren't for the fact that she woke up every morning in the bedroom, despite having fallen asleep on the sofa.

She went down to the Grill to see him, but he was so busy tearing things apart he barely glanced at her.

And now he had sent in company because he couldn't bear to be in the same space as her. "He is right. I am."

"How are you feeling?" Rebekah asked as they walked slowly side by side towards Giuseppe's house.

Elena blushed red hot.

"Better. I have stopped with the pain meds, so I'm sore, but that is better than asleep. I understand Damon told you…who I am."

Rebekah nodded, tilting her face up to the sun like a daisy pushing out of spring soil. Elena waited for a bunch of questions, about the pirates or what it was like growing up as a Gilbert, but Rebekah was silent.

"You don't have things you want to ask me?" Perhaps she should be getting some practice answering questions about the pirates. But Rebekah didn't ask her about pirates.

"Is your brother as handsome in real life as he is on TV?"

Elena laughed. "Women seem to think so."

Rebekah smiled but didn't ask her anything else. How wonderful, to not be some appendage of the Gilbert family tree, or worse, have her entire identity eclipsed by her three weeks as a hostage.

This feeling was why she had gone to Africa. In Africa she was just Elena. It was novel to feel this in the States, although, where her last name mattered.

"You are taking the day off?" Elena asked.

Rebekah laughed and shook her head. "A few hours. It is nice. I almost forgot what middle-of-the-day sunshine felt like."

"The café is amazing," Elena said and Rebekah glanced at her.

"That your way of saying it is worth it that I don't have a life?"

"You don't have a life?"

"I have a café, a small house, and a dying cactus. Is that a life?"

Elena laughed. "It is if you like it."

"I have enjoyed the last three years more than I can say. But…I'm tired. Not just in the I-need-more-sleep kind of way; my soul is tired. I need to feed it something different."

"My soul…my soul is hungry for something else, too."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Good question. What are you going to do?"

"Cooking classes."

"Doesn't seem very different."

"Oh, it will be." Rebekah's laugh was contagious and Elena found herself laughing too, without knowing the punch line.

They turned the corner and walked up the small sidewalk to Giuseppe's house, which, thanks to Damon's efforts on Tuesday didn't look nearly so neglected.

"Are you feeding your soul by meddling with the Salvatore men?"

"Maybe." Was that bad?

"Good." Rebekah nodded. "They could use it."

The screen door was shut but the storm door behind it was open a few inches and through the crack they could hear a group of men laughing.

The screen door rattled in its frame as she knocked, making a huge amount of racket and the voices all stopped.

Elena and Rebekah shared a surprised look just before the door cracked open and Giuseppe stared out through a haze of smoke.

"Giuseppe?" Elena started to smile, because Giuseppe looked very much like a teenager caught having a party. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing. What are you doing?"

Rebekah laughed. "We are not checking up on you, if that is what you are worried about. We just wanted to visit."

"Nobody wants to visit me."

Elena imagined that might be painfully true. "We do. Are you going to invite us in?"

Giuseppe looked over his shoulder. "Only if you promise not to tell my sons anything."

"Our lips are sealed," Elena said and beside her Rebekah nodded.

Giuseppe swung open the door and shuffled back, letting the women into the living room. The smoke was definitely from a cigar—or multiple cigars—and it originated, along with the voices, in the kitchen.

Where there were three old men sitting around the kitchen table playing cards. Drinking in glass tumblers what she hoped was sweet tea, but she had her doubts.

"Rebekah!" one of them said, his eyes lighting up. "Tell us you brought some food."

"Sorry, Josh, no food," Rebekah said. "What are you fellas doing?"

"Friday poker," another man said, not breaking focus on his cards.

"What happened to your face, honey?" The third man, tall with glasses thicker than he was, stood and approached Elena.

"I got hit," she said. Was that blabbing? Damon would no doubt not like her even saying that much.

"Have you been examined?" he asked, looking at her injuries and not particularly at her.

"I have. Are you a doctor?"

"Vet. Used to be anyway."

"She is not a cow, Tim," Giuseppe said. "Leave her alone." He directed Elena to the seat he had vacated. "You two want anything? I put Stefan's beans in the slow cooker, they are finally soft enough to eat."

And now many days old. Elena hoped no one was eating them.

"I'm fine, thank you." She sat and Giuseppe pulled over another chair for Rebekah, who obediently lowered herself into it.

"I'm George," said the man who hadn't looked up from the cards he was shuffling. "Do you play?"

"What is the game?"

"Five card, no wilds, aces high."

"Then, yes, I play."

George looked over at Rebekah, an eyebrow raised. "It has been years," she said. "I'm probably a little rusty."

"Can't be any rustier than Giuseppe," Tim said, putting his cigar between his teeth. "And he has been playing every week for ten years."

"All right," Rebekah said with a shrug. "Then I will play."

Elena wasn't entirely sure what kind of food this was for her soul, or if it tasted very good, but it was new and it was different and she was in no mood to say no.

"Deal, Tim, let's see what you boys have got."

Twenty minutes later, through no cheating, Elena made a big show of raking the pot toward herself.

"Well, boys, I would say you are all rusty," she teased and winked at Giuseppe and Josh, who were smiling. George was not.

"Another hand," George said, chewing on the end of his cigar. "Give me a chance to win back my money."

"You can have your money back," she said, pushing the chips back towards the centre of the table. "I need to get going."

"Me too," Rebekah said and stood. "My café may be burning down."

"How come you guys play poker here?" Elena asked, looking around at the hazy room with its pitted linoleum and the curtains with the faded cherries Lillian must have picked out long ago.

"We used to play at the Community Centre but they had to shut down all the programming there because of budgets." Tim stacked his meagre pile of blue chips. "Gayle misses the bridge nights."

"You can play bingo at the community centre on Friday nights," Josh said. "Margaret goes for the bingo every once in a while."

"Lillian liked to dance," Giuseppe said, worrying the grip of his cane again. "We used to go there a few times a year."

"At least here we can smoke," George said and lifted his tumbler. "Have a drink like grown men."

"But they used to have those sandwiches, remember? And coffee. It was nice.

"Isn't there anywhere else you can play?" Elena asked.

"Not if we want to smoke," George said. He clearly wanted to smoke.

Tim shrugged. "That egg salad was pretty good. Not as good as yours, Rebekah, but pretty good."

Elena stood and went over to the window above the sink. "Let me at least get some airflow in here, so you don't go home smelling like a cigar factory." She used the crank to open the casement window and noticed on the windowsill one of those weekly pill cases.

It was half-empty. Saturday, which was tomorrow, was open and empty, Sunday was full. Monday was empty. Tuesday had double the pills in it.

Elena felt the skin over her scalp tightening. She might not tell Damon about the poker, but she had to tell him about this. And the cigars.

She glanced back and caught Giuseppe watching her, his grey complexion bothering her anew.

"Does someone take care of this pill case for you?" she asked.

"Damon hired a gal."

"To monitor your prescriptions?"

"To clean up and cook me some food every once in a while, she handles all that." He waved his hand at her like it was no big deal.

He wasn't taking his prescriptions correctly.

That was a huge deal.

x x x

Over the last three days Damon had done all the demolition he could. He had torn down the last of the garage's weird drop ceiling, the defunct ductwork, and the tiny room in the back that must have been an office. He had filled Stefan's truck with load after load of stuff to take to the dump.

He had worked late and he had worked hard, all in an effort to avoid Elena.

Three days, and now there was nothing left for him to destroy.

But there was possibility. And this was the fun part.

It was like a big jigsaw puzzle, or a chess game. Every decision they made now would have a ripple effect, opening and closing options available to them.

Or to Stefan, rather.

"You are going to make a decision here, or not?" Damon yelled through the door between the garage and the bar.

Stefan appeared and leaned on the doorjamb. "What do you think?"

"It is your bar."

"You are the one who started knocking down the ceiling. You know I'm not good at—"

"Come on, Stefan," Damon snapped, in no mood for the act between them. "Let's…for god's sake, let's just stop the game we always play."

"What game?"

"The one where you pretend that no one can help you but me and I pretend that you are not full of shit."

"Who else am I going to get to do this for me for free?" Stefan asked, still trying to make it a joke and Damon was suddenly lifted by a giant wave of anger.

"Why is it always a joke with you?"

"Why is it always a burden with you?" Stefan snapped back, no longer joking. The air crackled around them. And Stefan, easy-going Stefan, was pissed. If Damonweren't so angry himself, he might be amazed. "You want us to stop pretending, fine, then you stop pretending that it is so hard to be here. That you are doing us such a god-damned favour by showing up in the middle of the night."

"I'm here for a job."

"Then where is she?" Stefan yelled, holding his arms out to indicate his empty bar. "Where has she been every night while you are down here watching ESPN highlights, drinking beer, and making plans for the garage? Where has she been all day long while you are helping me build my bar!"

Damon knew where this was going, and he had been afraid of it. Stefan was a bottomless cup. Give him some time and he wanted more. Constantly more. "Why the hell do you have to read into every little thing, Stefan? It is a little bit of work. A beer when it is done."

"Read…read into everything?" Stefan gasped, going all wide-eyed and offended. "Are you joking, Damon? If I don't read into shit with you, I don't get anything from you. Not one thing."

"What do you want? We are not partners."

"We could be—"

"But we are not. We are never going to be. My life is not here—"

"Then where is it? Tell me, where is your life?"

Damon opened his mouth but his brain was an empty buzz. A great sucking wind hole.

"Just tell me what you want to do with this space!" Damon yelled.

Everyone in his life was creeping too close. Asking too many questions.

The other night with Elena— _I want you. I'm wet, Damon. For you. I'm dying. For you. Are you going to do something about that?_

Damon stopped himself right there. Just shut down every single thought he might have about what had happened with Elena.

It would never happen again and he would do his best to forget that it had happened at all.

"My whole life you have made me feel like I need to apologize for being born—"

"Stefan," Damon gasped. "No."

"And then I had to apologize for needing you, for being small and weak, and now I feel like I need to apologize for wanting you here. For making room in my life for you. For wanting to be a god-damned family! Well, I'm not going to do it. Screw you, Damon," Stefan snapped. "Don't take your shitty life out on me."

Hearing Stefan leave, Damon hung his head for a moment.

All the frustrations Damon used to feel as a teenager, about his life, about every unsaid thing between him and Giuseppe, he took out on the guys who went after Stefan. And later, as Damon got older, the idiots who called him names because he was not Giuseppe's son.

And after leaving Mystic Falls, after the Corps, Afghanistan, he just skipped the middle man and took that frustration out on Stefan. And that was a shitty thing to do.

Damon dug at his eyes. He wanted out of Mystic Falls so bad he could taste it, and if it weren't for Elena he would be gone. Long gone.

But Elena was here and he had to stay. And thank God there was work to do.

 _I guess it is up to me, then,_ he thought, eager to get out of the mood he was in. Eager to be saved from thoughts of Stefan and memories of Elena.

The scrape of his boots against the concrete echoed in the big wood room. What they needed was to figure out how to make the kitchen work for both spaces. And just how big did this kitchen have to be? The thought of Stefan working a fryer sent chills down Damon's spine.

 _Maybe Rebekah can teach Stefan how to cook,_ Damon thought. He wondered if his brother knew how Rebekah felt about him. His little brother could be pretty stupid when it came to that stuff.

Thoughts of Elena and her T-shirt–wearing ambush that he probably should have seen coming mocked him.

 _I'm pretty stupid about it, too._

He dug a piece of chalk out of his tool belt and started to tap on the wall connecting the garage and the bar. No support beams. He put a big white X on it.

That would go.

He imagined where the end of the bar was and extended a white line across the floor of the garage; they could extend the bar, or use that space for the kitchen. It would be small. Galley-style. It would also separate the two rooms, while at the same time serving them.

New hardwood floors in the main room. Some bathrooms in the back.

He turned and eyed the garage doors and the asphalt parking pad in front.

 _Picnic tables,_ he thought. _Now, that…that is a great idea._

"Stefan!" he yelled. "Come on over here."

x x x

Having showered the cigar smoke out of her hair and gathered the courage to face Damon in the bar, it was anti-climactic to find the bar empty.

Empty but loud. The Rolling Stones roared out of the speakers above the bar.

"You got to do it sometime, Stefan." Elena heard Damon's voice and she walked through the door into the empty garage where the boys were. Damon was holding a sledgehammer and wearing a smile that made her heart beat faster. Devilish. It was a devilish smile.

"But now? What if you leave tomorrow and I end up with only a huge hole in my wall?"

"It is demo, Stefan, anyone can do it." Muscles contracted against his dusty green T-shirt as he lifted the sledgehammer to his shoulder. "Are you ready?"

Stefan lifted his own sledgehammer, but his face was that of a kid about to go down a huge waterslide he was unsure of.

"Count of three?" Damon asked.

"Let's just do it. Three!"

Both men swung, Stefan to the side, Damon over his head, and the hammers bit deep into the ancient wood panelling, tearing huge holes in the wall and pulling out big chunks.

"Oh, my God," Stefan exclaimed, his face alight. "We did it."

"It is going to be great, Stefan," Damon said and clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You will see."

"That he has got a hole in his wall?" Elena asked and both men turned to her. She was watching Damon—because she couldn't help it, because her entire being dictated that if he was in the room, she should be watching him—so she saw the flinch. The clue to his discomfort before he hid it away.

Damon didn't want her here.

And that stung.

 _He ran away from you,_ she told herself, _what did you expect? Open arms?_

"You should be resting," Damon said after a long, silent moment. He didn't look at her and she couldn't look away.

 _Isn't that the story of us,_ she thought, feeling foolish.

"I…ah…I need to talk to you." Elena glanced at Stefan, who was staring at the hole in his wall. "Both of you."

"What is wrong?" Damon asked, stepping forward. "Did something happen. Did someone bother you?"

"No. Nothing…like that. This morning I went to visit your dad."

"What?" Damon asked, his mouth all but hanging open. "Giuseppe?"

Elena nodded and Damon and Stefan shared a rather stunned look. "What happened?" Stefan asked.

"Well, I'm worried about his meds. I don't think he is taking them correctly." She explained the weekly pillbox and Stefan ran a hand through his hair and over his face.

"We need to hire a nurse," he said.

"A nurse?" Damon asked. "How do you think that will go over?"

"Like a ton of bricks, but what choice do we have?"

Damon turned away and picked up his sledgehammer.

"Damon," Stefan said. "We need to talk about this."

Damon slipped his glasses down over his eyes. "We just did. You will hire a nurse."

Stefan's mouth dropped open. "You are kidding."

"I will pay for it."

"Holy hell, man, I get it, your childhood was pretty complicated, but he is your dad!"

Damon threw the safety glasses off his head and they smacked into the wall. "What do you want me to do?"

It wasn't an accusation, it was…lost. He didn't know what to do.

"Someone should go over there tonight," Elena said. "You have no idea how long he has been taking his meds wrong—"

Damon pointed at Stefan. "That is your department."

Stefan's face, all that light, all that mischief, it turned cold and reflected many hard years of resentment. "What is your department, brother?" He spat the word.

Damon shrugged. "I will pay."

"It is Friday night, I have got to get the bar stocked for Jim. I'm busy." Stefan braced his hands on the bar and gave every impression of a man who wasn't budging.

"I will go," Elena volunteered, because the tension in the room was insane and she couldn't stand it.

"No," Stefan said. "You have done enough, Elena, honestly. We can handle this."

"I will go with you, Damon" she said and Damon turned towards her, his expression stark again, like someone who had seen something awful, and then he put it away; just like that, his face was hard and shuttered and revealed nothing.

"Fine, I will go. Alone," he said, his words so pointed they slid through her ribs. "Can I get back to work now?"

x x x

Damon knocked on the front door of Giuseppe's house, taking as much of his anger out on the aluminium screen door as he could.

After a second of waiting, he knocked again. But the door didn't open. There didn't seem to be any sign of life, not that that was any different from normal.

Immediately a dozen worst-case scenarios ran through his mind.

When he turned the knob, the storm door opened and he walked in just as Giuseppe was making his slow way from the kitchen into the living room.

Giuseppe stared at him as if a wildebeest just entered the front door.

"Are you okay?" Damon asked, letting the screen door close behind him. Sealing him into the beige grief of the house.

"Fine. Eating dinner. What are you doing here?"

Damon had decided on the walk over not to lie. And not to sugar-coat things. He didn't know how to do it and Giuseppe wouldn't appreciate it.

"Elena said she came over today—"

"She was supposed to keep quiet about that," Giuseppe grumbled and turned around to head back into the kitchen. Damon followed, caught up with him in time to help him sit down in his chair. Giuseppe shot him a low look under his eyebrows. "I don't see what the big deal is about a couple of cigars and some poker."

"Cigars?" Damon asked. "Elena didn't say anything about cigars."

"Oh." Giuseppe pulled his plate closer. Dinner was a turkey sandwich and applesauce. Something about that meagre dinner on a plate he recognized from his childhood made Damon's gut twist with guilt. "Then never mind."

No chance of that, but one battle at a time.

"She said you weren't taking your pills correctly." Damon went to the small table beside the recliner in the other room; while all the pill bottles were there, the weekly case wasn't.

"It is in here. Under the window," Giuseppe said. "You and Stefan hired that girl to take care of it. If things aren't right, go harass her."

"We hired her to clean up and make you a proper dinner." Damon pointed to the entirely tan plate. "And I think she is screwing up more than just the pills."

"It is my dinner," Giuseppe said. "And I like it."

The air crackled around them and Damon grabbed the pill case from the windowsill.

"Elena was right. This is a mess."

"They are just pills."

Damon didn't know how to read Giuseppe. He had never in his life known how to read him, and once he would have given him anything, would have done anything for him, but that moment was many years past. And now he was just pissed that the two of them kept circling each other, with no place to land.

"It is medicine. That you need and you need to take correctly." Damon went to the living room and grabbed the prescription bottles before charging back into the kitchen. "Let's see what we have got here." He read the label on the first bottle. "For high blood pressure." He set the bottle down and moved on to the second. "This is a blood thinner. I'm guessing you had a stroke? Did you mention that to anyone?"

"The doctor knows."

"No need to mention it to your son."

"If you wanted—"

"I'm talking about Stefan."

The words fell like lit bombs between them.

 _Not me. I was never your son._ Damon knew he was never Giuseppe's son.

Giuseppe pushed away from the table, the chair legs making an unholy screech against the linoleum.

"You can't mess around with this," Damon said, not looking at Giuseppe, reading the labels for the dosage information. Studiously he emptied the pillboxes, dumped the capsules on the table, and started resorting things.

"I'm dying, Damon."

"Bullshit." The words exploded out of him, forcing Giuseppe back in his chair, where he chewed on the thick silence. Damon looked away, his skin hot and then cold with embarrassment and anger. "You are not dying. You are just…old. And not taking your meds right."

"I'm sorry," Giuseppe said.

"Well, you will be if you keep taking these things the wrong way."

"No, son." The word detonated inside of Damon and he knocked over one of the bottles. Son. God, what he would have done to hear that when he was six. "I'm sorry for what I did to you."

Damon's hands shook as he swept the pills into the brown plastic bottle and he hated that. He hated that he was here, that Stefan was forcing this issue, that Giuseppe, after years of silence, felt compelled to try and make things right.

Damon was a bone that had been broken years ago and allowed to heal like that. It didn't hurt him anymore, but things weren't quite right because of it.

"I was so scared," Giuseppe said. "So scared that I would lose everything. Lillian, Stefan—"

"I know, Giuseppe. You don't need to rehash this shit."

"It is not shit, Damon. It is your life."

"It was a million years ago." Quickly, decisively Damon put the pills in the proper section of the weekly case. "I will talk to the girl who is supposed—"

"Talk to me."

Damon nearly reeled back. "We don't have anything to talk about."

He put the case back on the windowsill and the bottles beside it. "See you later," he said. Time to go. Way past time to go. He never should have come.

Giuseppe smashed his cane down on the side of the Formica table. His plate rattled and his water glass exploded onto the floor. Damon stopped in his tracks between the kitchen and living room.

"Talk to me!"

"And say what?" Damon roared. "Thank you, thank you for giving me a home and clean sheets and good food and a proper education. Thank you!"

"You know that is not it," Giuseppe said. "You have a right to be angry at me. You have a right to be angry at the way things happened."

"I'm not your son." Damon shook his head. "What happened afterward was no one's fault."

"I remember that night, you know. I remember it so clearly, the way you cleaned your dishes and you brushed your teeth and I stood in that hallway and held on to myself because I was falling apart."

"It is okay," Damon said, because Giuseppe was turning red. He was shaking and his lips were white. "Calm down."

"I can't calm down!" he roared and then started coughing. They were awful wrenching coughs dug up from the bottom of his feet.

Damon got a glass from the cabinet, filled with water and set the glass down in front of Giuseppe, who reached for it with shaking hands. Damon knew he would spill or drop it so he picked it up and helped the old man drink. Still, water rained down on his old USMC T-shirt that Giuseppe had bought and worn proudly when Damon went into the Corps.

He had been so proud of Damon being selected for Recon. As guide. And Damon had been so proud of making Giuseppe proud and then…then it had been over and Giuseppe couldn't even step into Damon's room in Walter Reed.

How did anything ever survive?

"I know what I did to you," Giuseppe gasped. "That night. You were going to tell me how scared you were. And I couldn't handle it—"

"You were scared," Damon said. "You were just trying to survive." He set the glass down and Giuseppe grabbed Damon's hands, the old skin felt like tissue paper, rough and soft at the same time.

It was the first time the old man had touched him in years and Damon gasped, he tipped back his head searching for air.

"I made it so you could never ask for more than what you got. And that was such a terrible thing to do to a kid," Giuseppe said, his blue eyes runny. Whether it was age or emotion didn't matter, Damon found them paralysing. "It is okay to want more."

Damon smiled, because Giuseppe was working himself into a state and Damon needed to get out of this house with its relics and its ghosts.

"I have got plenty," Damon said, pulling his hands free, but Giuseppe hung on and he hung on hard. Damon had no idea what to do with the interest, the sudden panicked and intense care from this man.

"It is okay to want more," Giuseppe repeated.

"Heard you the first time. Now come on." Finally, Damon pulled himself free. But it didn't feel right to just leave, Giuseppe seemed fragile.

"Do you know what people used to say about you when you were a kid?" Giuseppe asked. Damon could only shake his head, he'd had no idea anyone had talked about him when he was a kid. He was invisible inside of himself, how could anyone else see him?

"They used to say you were so brave. Such a brave kid. And Lillian would get so mad, because she knew. She knew how scared you were. And she kept trying to reach you—"

Suddenly, he remembered her picking him up at school, once the health threats were over. Actually, what he remembered was the way she stood on the sidewalk outside the building, Stefan chewing on his fists in the stroller beside her. When she waved at Damon, she used her whole arm. When she smiled, it was with her whole face. Like her body just vibrated with how happy she was to see him after a mere six hours.

And Damon had liked it. H had liked it so much he had wanted to run across the lawn and throw himself at her legs. So, of course, of course he asked her not to pick him up anymore. Gave her some bullshit story about wanting to walk home by himself.

Damon stumbled against the other chair, feeling like the earth was moving too fast.

He hadn't wanted anything like that ever again. So badly that he pushed it away before he lost it. Not even the Marines. Not rehabilitation. Not his job.

Until Elena.

Giuseppe pulled his fingers away from Damon's grip and then he patted him on the hand, as if he knew, as if he could see right into Damon's heart…and maybe he could.

Damon always thought Lillian was the one who understood him so well, but Giuseppe had figured out how to destroy him with just two words.

And now he was trying to fix him.

Elena had asked him what it would take to make things right between him and Giuseppe, and it had seemed like there was nothing that could leverage them out of the landslide they had gotten caught in.

But suddenly Damon wasn't sure about that.

"It is okay to want more," Giuseppe said again and with shaking hands he pulled his plate closer. "Have you eaten?"

Numb, Damon shook his head. But Giuseppe didn't see him.

It took a while, Giuseppe's thick fingers made a mess of tearing his sandwich piece by piece in a jagged line down the middle, and at any moment Damon could have stopped him. There was food at the house. Good food.

Elena was there, too.

"I want you to stay," Giuseppe said. "That is what I want. Stay with me."

Giuseppe set the sandwich down on the table beside Damon's fist. His instinct was to push it away. His fingers actually twitched like the muscle memory was just too strong to resist.

 _I can't be that man anymore. I don't want to be that man anymore._

It was a panicky new feeling, walking about on shaking legs that he didn't know how to trust. But it was so big, it stood at the forefront of everything. It blotted out the memory of being that boy, the smell of hot dogs and beans. Of asking his mother not to pick him up because he couldn't want something without imagining the horrific pain of its loss.

Damon unclenched his fists and picked up the sandwich.


	12. Chapter 12

Elena sat cross-legged on the futon making lists. She was a big fan of lists. They were calming; they organized the fear out of the unknown and some of the darkness out of the coming night.

Initially she planned on making a list for the things she needed to do, now that her bruises were fading it was time to get on with her life. But she kept getting distracted by making a list of things that could be done for Giuseppe and the rest of Mystic Falls' senior population.

Her own list was boring: press conference, campaign for Jeremy. Yuck.

Organizing a poker night for seniors at the Grill was a whole lot more fun.

The front door of the house opened, letting in the night and the fresh smell of rain. Damon stood there, one hand on the doorknob; his head bent as if listening to someone say his name from a place far away.

Everything shifted inside of Elena, cringing to the sides to make room for all this…feeling. For Damon. Great bullying feelings that pushed around her common sense and her other plans and any thought past him. And the next moment with him.

 _Oh,_ she thought. _Oh, this is bad._

"How did it go with your father?" She put her pencil down on the pad, scenting something terrible in the air. The sharp edge of heartbreak and the bitter tang of fear. "You were gone a long time."

Without a word Damon crossed the room and Elena saw the wet spots on his shoulders, the rain like stars in his dark hair. She sucked in a breath that tasted like lightning.

He stood over her, a shadow thrown across her whole world.

"Damon?" she whispered, electrified by his silence.

Something was very, very different.

"I want you," Damon said, the words landing like cinders from a fire against her skin. Elena had to open her mouth to pull in enough air, and even that sizzled through her lungs.

"I have always wanted you," he whispered. And it was a dream, a fantasy; he came down to his knees on the floor beside the sofa.

"I want you, too," Elena whispered. Damon groaned and pressed his head into her stomach. His hands furrowed under the hem of her cut-offs, up along the warm skin of her thighs.

"This is a mistake," he whispered into her belly. "Tell me you know that."

"No," Elena said. Greedy, aware that this moment, this breakdown of his iron control, his impeccable solitude, might not last, she covered as much of his territory as possible, making huge circles with her palms over his back, taking note of every muscle, every dimple of scar tissue. Hot flesh and hard muscle. She twined her fingers into his hair, smoothed it down over his ears. She was drunk with touching him. High. It was the only reason she would ever open her mouth and say, "I'm falling in love with you."

Damon sat back on his heels, his eyes wide.

She was lying—she was already in love with him—and he knew it. If he didn't he was an idiot, and no one could accuse him of that.

There was no point in being embarrassed by her feelings; it was a relentlessly bad instinct to love this man, but it was also equally impossible not to.

Elena shrugged. "Sorry."

Suddenly the house was illuminated by a giant lightning strike and then it shook with booming, rolling thunder.

And in the silence that followed, the air around them changed. Damon changed. Heartbreak and fear were replaced by the razor-sharp edge of intent. Sexual intent. He was going to say something rude, ask her to do something ruder to try to cure her feelings, but it was useless, she was wet at the thought.

He sat back on his heels, his jeans stretched taut over his legs, and carefully she uncrossed hers and put her bare toes against his thigh. He burned through his denim. Her toes slid over the round hill of his muscle, toward his lean waist. His belt.

Her face burned, she was blushing so hard, but she touched her big toe to the cold metal of his belt buckle. An unmistakable signal.

 _I'm in,_ she tried to convey. _Mistake or not, I want you._

"Undo it," Damon said, his voice a low growl that could ask her to do anything and she would comply. Leaning forward, Elena brought her mouth within a breath of his. The fact that he didn't kiss her was excruciating, they simply breathed each other in and then out. He watched her; she watched her fumbling, shaking fingers slip the leather from the metal loop and push it free.

"Take me out."

She dipped her fingers behind the brass button, her knuckles flush with the hot skin of his belly. He sucked in a breath and the thin line of hair there tickled her hand. The button was stubborn, her fingers were clumsy, but she managed to get it undone.

The loudest thing on the planet was that zipper. But then it was down and…Oh God. Elena bit her lip. It had been a really long time since she had been in this position and most of those experiences had ended in disappointment or marginal horror. But she reached into the soft black cotton of his boxers and slipped her hand around…

She moaned at the size of him. The heat. The awkward reality of pulling a large, fully erect penis free from underwear. But then he was out and it was soft and hard and gorgeous. She ran her fingers down its sides, finding veins and secret soft spots that made his body clench hard. The thick plum at the top leaked a tear and she touched it with her finger, running it around the spongy head.

Suddenly, Damon stood, his hips—his erection—at eye level. Mouth level. He pulled his underwear down under his sack and stroked his dick with his own hand, and it was so hot, so unbearably erotic that she squirmed in her seat.

"Look at you," he breathed. "You want it so bad."

 _I do, I really do,_ Elena thought.

But while she might like his raw words, she felt stupid saying them herself. Didn't know how to make them sound right out of her mouth, so she just nodded.

"Suck me," he said. Between her legs, she throbbed. The weight of her T-shirt against her nipples was unbearable. Her skin felt like it couldn't hold in how much she wanted him.

Damon cupped the back of her head, pulling her toward him, and she braced her hand against his hip, her thumb right there in the divet where his muscles met, and that was so hot she stroked it.

"I said suck me," he said and Elena nearly rolled her eyes.

"You should know, if you are trying to scare me, it is not working. I like this. If I didn't, I would walk away."

Damon blinked, his mouth slack, and Elena shook off the hand he was trying to use to intimidate her. When she curled her fingers around him, his breath came out on a hitch, like something he was trying to hide, and that wouldn't do.

She couldn't hide from him. Had never been able to, and she was tired of letting him hide from her.

More graceful than she thought she could be, she slid to the edge of the sofa and spread her legs so he stood between her knees and then she licked the long, broad underside of his dick before pulling the tip into her mouth.

"Oh God."

That hand Damon had used to try and force her now curved so tenderly over her shoulder, the moment was transformed. This wasn't something she was doing to him, or him to her. They were in this together. His thumb rested right at her heartbeat and she felt the rebound of her pulse under his skin.

Carefully, because he was big and she didn't know exactly what she was doing, she took more of him in her mouth, a long slick slide, until her eyes watered and she felt him at the back of her throat.

"Easy, honey," Damon breathed, pulling her away very slowly. Her hand curled around that soft-hard mystery and she slowly went from root up to tip and back again, sucking on the head, slowly jacking him off.

Everything about this, the intimacy of his taste and his smell, the way he bent his knees when she took as much of him as she could. The way his hand squeezed her shoulder—all of it fed her. Delighted her. Told her a hundred little stories about him.

Damon liked it when she slipped her other hand around his waist and over his ass, up his back and down again. He liked it when she sucked hard on the tip and moved her hand fast just below her lips. She touched his balls and he laughed.

When Elena looked up at his face while sucking him, he groaned, his cheeks bright and red. His eyes were unfocused like he was just barely holding on. He touched her cheek, her lips where they wrapped around him, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing and wanted to be sure.

His dick, his fingers against her lips, it was too much. She arched toward him.

He popped out of her mouth and Elena rested her head against his hip. "I'm dying. Damon," she whispered. Every bad date, every drunk guy who passed out, every time she had said no for reasons she didn't really understand but probably had their roots in this man. All of that desire she had shelved came tumbling down on her and she was ready to crawl out of her skin. She rocked hard against the sofa, making herself crazy, searching for a relief.

"Lie back."

Eager, she did, her arms out by her sides. Her eyes on him.

Damon ripped off his shirt, toed off his boots, pulled down his pants, all in one big long graceful strip, so fast if she blinked she would have missed it.

There were men who paid lots of money in an effort to look like Damon. A man, with muscle and hair in all the right places. The scar tissue from the burns along his hip, the spider web of surgical scars across his knee—it didn't diminish anything about him.

His hands caught the bottom hem of her shirt, lifting it up and over her head, making her hair shower down around her shoulders, over her breasts, and across her face. Not wanting to miss a second of his face, Elena quickly brushed it away. Her cut-offs, too big from the last time she wore them, slipped down her hips with one good yank from him.

His eyes took a walk all over her—her hair, her face, her breasts, the yellow blooms along her ribs—and as he looked, he was right out there in the open.

No more hiding.

So effected, so turned on, she arched under his gaze, her arms up over her head.

"Touch me," Elena whispered.

Damon spread his palm wide just under her throat and slowly dragged it over her breasts, down her tummy, to the soft brown fur between her legs.

"You are so beautiful," he said. His thumb found the damp top end of her slit and slid into the furrow, down over her clit to where she wept for him.

Elena couldn't control the way her body jerked; she grabbed his wrist to keep herself centred. It seemed like they had jumped ahead a few steps and she needed them to back up. There was no part of this she wanted to skip. The smallest tug on his hand brought him up and over her body. He ducked his head and kissed the swell of her breast; she shifted and he licked her hard nipple, sucked it into his mouth, and her nerve endings went berserk, she twitched, her hands reaching up into his hair, keeping him close.

Damon cupped her breast in his hand, holding it high, and Elena watched as his tongue licked her nipple, his lips covered it. Oh, she couldn't breathe…when he sucked she cried out. And again when he used his teeth on her nipple. Pleasure boiled inside of her and she lifted her knees up along the outside of his thighs and his erection pressed right into the centre of her body. Her hands clawed at his back, wanting him closer. Needing him closer.

"Kiss me," she breathed.

"I am." His breath, hot and wet, blew across her breast and she shuddered.

"My mouth."

Damon looked up at her, their eyes meeting, and suddenly the reality of what they were doing hit home. The intimacy of it was shocking. It wasn't just their naked bodies. It was their naked souls. At least hers anyway.

He braced his elbows over her shoulders and slid his thumb along her lips. She could taste herself on his skin, the musk of her desire. She opened her lips and he slid inside.

His groan was pulled from his guts and she couldn't stand it anymore; she leaned up and kissed him. Forced his lips open with her tongue, wrapped her hands in his hair to keep him close.

It was every kiss Elena had ever wanted from Damon, and he kissed her right back, with the same velocity. The same hunger and need, and he thrust against her, his dick sliding through her wetness to brush against her clit.

Elena gasped, the kiss forgotten as stars exploded in her body.

"Again," she breathed and he complied, his head bent to her neck. She met his thrust with her own, pressing down against him as he pressed up.

"Elena, honey." He sucked the tender skin at the base of her throat into his mouth. He pressed kisses all along her chest until he got to her breasts. He pushed them together, licking and biting the peaks while she went ape-shit under him.

There was no control, she was just raw electrical impulse. She pushed against him until the sparks gained momentum, until it hurt and there was a current pushing her somewhere.

"Damon," she groaned. "Damon…what…I need more."

"More?"

"Please."

Damon slipped away from her.

"No!" she cried, furious and…he licked her. There. He pushed her legs over his shoulders, kneeling on the floor between her legs. His fingers spread her open and his tongue…Elena fell back against the sofa. His tongue was inside her. Fast and hard and then he sucked on her clit and it was his fingers inside her and it hurt…for a second it hurt. Not because her hymen was intact, but because nothing as big as his fingers had ever been inside of her. There was a stretch and a pull.

"You are so tight," he said against her unbearably hot and wet skin. He twisted his fingers inside her, stretching her, and the ratio of pain to pleasure skewed off and she didn't like that.

A new urgency burned through her, to have this done with. To make this choice and get on with her life.

"Come on," she breathed and tugged on his elbow.

"You are not ready, honey."

"I am. Trust me, I'm ready."

His finger slid in deep and then out again, dragging across nerve bundles she never would have guessed she had.

"Please, Damon, hurry."

Damon stood up, his mouth wet, and when he wiped it with the back of his hand it was the hottest thing Elena had ever seen.

"I will be right back." His eyes danced across her body and he seemed transfixed, so she gave him a push with her foot.

That made him smile, and he left but not before leaning over her to press a kiss to her belly.

He walked to the bathroom and she admired the bunch and pulse of his legs, the wide lovely sail of his back. Honestly, there was not a man more attractive than Damon. Through the bathroom's open door Elena watched him take a silver packet from his kit bag. As he walked back into the room he tore open the packet with his teeth and without taking his eyes off her, slid the condom over his erection.

Her breath shuddered in her burning lungs.

He was back between her legs, and she knew better than to say anything about her virginity. There would be no way to measure the speed with which he would run from her if he knew, so she reached up and touched him, the latex wrapped heat of him.

"Move back," Damon said and as Elena scooted up the sofa he crawled over her.

His fingers ran through the dampness between her legs, he slid one finger inside of her and then slowly another one.

"Come on," she breathed, pulling his weight onto her, against her. His dick replaced his fingers, not inside of her but against her. Hard and high against her clit, and she whimpered, pulsing against him. She clutched him with her arms and legs, wanting more, wanting this to be over as much as she wanted it to last forever.

Elena felt him reach between them and then when he thrust again, it wasn't against her, it was inside her, and she gasped with the pain.

Damon buried his face against her neck, his hands in fists by her ears.

The next thrust was a long, slow splitting of her and she bit her lip against the burn and sting. It would feel good again, she knew that. She wasn't a total innocent, but this…this hurt.

And then suddenly she felt his hip bones against hers and he was lodged, high and hard, inside her. She felt pinned to the sofa by his cock. She tried to shift but couldn't. Not without pain.

"Elena?"

She opened her eyes to find Damon staring at her.

Her attempt at a smile was lame, she could see how utterly unconvincing it was by the way he frowned at her.

She curled her arms up over his shoulders and tried to pull him down to kiss her, but he caught her hands and pressed them up above her head.

His strength was so exciting and she felt the sting of him inside of her lessen.

"Well," she said, trying to sound okay, when inside she was suffering through an earthquake. "We took care of that."

"Elena," he groaned, dropping his head. He shifted as if to pull out of her and she clutched him with all her strength.

"Don't you dare, Damon. Don't you dare leave because you are freaked out. I'm freaked out. Me. And I need your help."

His eyes glittered as they looked at her, and still Damon pulled away.

"No," she groaned, her hands trying to grab on to the slick muscles of his back. "What are you doing? Please—"

"If we are going to do this, we are going to do it right, Elena."

x x x

Elena was a virgin.

Of course she was, because nothing about her was totally as it seemed. At least for Damon.

If she was already the most good and innocent thing he had ever touched, she had to compound it. She had to gild herself with all the beauty he had no business touching.

A virgin.

On some level Damon had known she was inexperienced, but it still wasn't enough to make him walk away. Nothing at this point could make him walk away.

He slid down to the ground again, between her leg, and put his mouth on the tender flesh he had hurt. He licked and kissed, found the hot spots and the places that made her dance away from him. When Elena gasped and cried out, when she put her fingers in his hair and held him still, he was fiercely, selfishly glad that he had this moment with her. That it was him making her come. Him using his finger, and another one slowly twisting and pushing inside of her, getting her ready for his cock.

Damon wanted to make it good for her. So good. As good as it was for him just touching her. Kissing her.

For other people Elena could be brave and noble. Kind and generous. For him, he wanted her wild. Out of control.

"Damon," she groaned as he twisted his fingers, finding that soft spot on the inside wall of her. He pressed and she cried out. He licked her clit, sucked her into his mouth, and he felt her start to fall apart.

He made her come twice, until the muscles in her legs were twitching, until she could take three fingers inside her body without flinching.

After she came the second time, he surged up over her, licked sweat off her beautiful breasts, kissed her nipples, her neck…and finally her lips.

Elena hesitated at the taste of herself, but Damon didn't give her a chance to be shy. He was burning alive and he wanted her with him.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"So good." Her hands slipped along his back where all the sweat was pooling at his spine. Her hips pressed against his and it was all the invitation he needed. He lifted her hips with one hand and slowly thrust into her.

Elena was tight, so freaking tight. But she was ready, and Damon didn't feel her flinch away from him like she had last time. She wasn't tense beneath him, putting a bright smile on the pain she felt.

No, she was sweaty and panting, her eyes heavy-lidded, her lips pink and raw where she kept biting them.

Good, he thought, nearly mindless with his need to finish this. He braced one hand on the sofa, by her ear, and she grabbed his wrist; his other hand he kept under her hips, keeping her as close as he could. They slid against each other, sweaty and uncoordinated. But then she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips, pulling him higher inside of her. Harder.

Damon pushed her knees back, slowly thrusting in and out of her until her forehead wrinkled and she groaned.

"More. More, Damon."

And he had more. He gave her everything, everything he wanted and wasn't brave enough to put into words. He pushed and he pushed and she pushed back, until he was light-headed and up was down and down was up and he didn't know who he was or what point there was to fighting this woman.

Damon pitched forward, caught himself on his fists. She came a third time, her body tensing up against his, her breath caught in her throat.

One more thrust and he followed her into the darkness.

Elena woke up wrapped in sheets that smelled like Damon and sex. Her body was full. Lush, swollen. There was too much blood in her veins, her brain made slow by pleasure.

Her lips were sore, between her legs she throbbed and ached, but she stared at the ceiling and smiled.

A wild pulse of memory flooded her—his mouth between her legs, his fingers twined with hers, the bend of his neck as he rested against her, catching his breath.

It had been everything Elena had ever dreamed and a thousand times more.

But now she was alone. She could tell by the echoing silence that the house was empty.

For a moment, she was exhausted by the thought of the distance Damon would place between them again. When she saw him next he would be predictably cold, predictably Damon.

The sting to her heart was not small.

Perhaps she should have held off on the I'm falling in love with you stuff.

Perhaps she should have never said those words loud.

After showering Elena got dressed and brushed her hair, all while systematically shelving her fledging romantic feelings. One by one she put them away. She was a realist, pragmatic to her bones.

She might love Damon, but she was under no illusion that she could change him. He was going to have to do that on his own. If he wanted to.

And she had her doubts about that.

So resolved, excited but preparing for the worst, she left the house and walked towards the Grill.

Damon had been hard at work since yesterday morning, and the wall between the bar and the garage was completely gone. Nothing but stud. Damon was walking armfuls of old panelling out the back door.

He stopped when he saw Elena.

Amazing what his attention did to her, amazing his stoic, silent face's effect on her blood and bone and heart and skin.

It wasn't fair that so much of her wanted to be his.

"Hey," Elena said and gave him a little wave. The stupidest wave ever waved.

Damon lifted the hem of his black T-shirt to his forehead, revealing the slice of his muscled belly, and she looked away, embarrassed. Hot.

"How are you feeling?" Just looking at him reminded her of every touch, that hard push in her body, the suck and slide of his tongue, his mouth—on her breasts, between her legs, the back of her neck.

Inside she shivered and shook.

 _I feel alive and sad and happy and terrified,_ Elena thought.

"Fine," she said. "You?"

"Good. Very good." Damon sent her a knowing glance from the corner of his eyes and Elena felt herself light up like Rudolph's nose.

Not so distant after all, she thought, so pleased and surprised she had to force herself not to touch him. Instead, she put her hand on the yellow wood of a two-by-four, picking off the edge of a splinter.

"You didn't wake me up," Elena said.

"You were sleeping pretty hard."

She imagined Damon watching her sleep and it was such a nice thought, such a romantic vision, she made herself stop. It was one thing to be in a doomed love affair with the man, but creating romantic visions about him would only get her hurt.

More hurt, she corrected herself. Because pain was already coming her way.

"You know we…ah…we never talked about your dad last night," she said.

"You were right, the pills were a mess. He is not eating well. But you didn't tell me about the cigars."

"He swore me to secrecy. But I figured if he didn't come clean, I would let you know."

"Very diplomatic."

Elena did a silly little curtsy.

His lip kicked up and he shook his head. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I'm looking for Stefan."

"He went over to Rebekah's for coffee and some food."

"Perfect," Elena said, thinking she could use the same. She pulled her sunglasses and hat from the back pocket of her cut-offs.

"What are you doing?" Damon asked, watching her put on her ridiculous disguise.

"I'm going to Rebekah's to talk to your brother." She crossed the bar and pushed open the front door. It was cloudy and last night's rain still hung in the air, which made the sunglasses totally unnecessary.

Damon caught up with her, his long legs in a short stride to match hers. "I will come with you," he said.

Elena ignored the leap in her heart.

"Protection from all the villainous photographers?" She wiggled her fingers and pretended to look behind bushes, making fun of him.

"I just want to come with you."

She tripped over the edge of the sidewalk, but caught herself before he touched her. The motion made her ribs ache and she felt her cheeks get hot, not because she tripped, but because she had decided not to care anymore about what Damon did or didn't do in regards to her and now that was ruined.

 _I just want to come with you._

A couple of words, the warmth of his body as they walked into town, and she wanted him to care.

So badly it hurt, Elena wanted him to care.

Rebekah's café was going at a steady Saturday pace and Stefan was sitting in a booth with a tall cool blond woman whom Elena had never seen before.

"Hey, Lexi," Damon said as they approached the booth.

"Hi, Damon." The blonde's smile was just a shade above lukewarm. Elena got the impression that it wasn't personal, it was just the way she was.

"A coffee break already?" Stefan asked, his arm stretched over the back of the booth. A half-eaten omelette, a few stray potatoes, and some toast sat on the plate in front of him. "What am I paying you for?"

"You are not. But you can start by buying me some breakfast." Damon helped Elena sit down beside Lexi and then slid into the booth beside Stefan. "Lexi, this is Elena. Elena, this is Lexi Branson, she is an art teacher for the district and runs an art facility on the edge of town."

"Art facility," Elena said as she shook hands with the woman. "That sounds amazing." How strange that all of this seemed so okay. So normal. Of course she and Damon would just sit down with these two and Stefan would give Damon a hard time and Elena would ask questions about the art facility Lexi ran.

Stefan would crack a joke and they would all laugh. Except for Lexi, but her eyes were warm and that seemed like it was good enough.

 _This was what our life would look like if we were here. Together,_ Elena thought.

What an outrageously dangerous idea—a grenade with the pin pulled.

 _But if I had more time with him… If he could just get used to being loved. There was no doubt he felt something._

There was a chance, with time, Damon would love her back.

"Elena wanted to talk to you, Stefan," Damon said and pulled the half-eaten omelette away from his brother. He cut himself a bite and then pushed the plate towards Elena, with his eyebrow raised, offering her some.

Elena shook her head and Damon went to work on the rest of it.

"Is it about Dad?" Stefan asked. "Damon already told me about the cigars. And we have got some feelers out for nurses."

"Actually, it is about your poker night at the bar."

"You are not still trying to do that, are you?" Lexi asked Stefan.

"It is not the failure everyone thinks it is," Stefan said.

"It is worse," Damon said and wiped his mouth.

"Does your dad know about it?" Elena asked. "Those guys he plays cards with?"

Stefan blinked. "I don't know…I guess so. Or maybe not. It is really only publicized in the bar."

"And they don't come."

Stefan shook his head.

"Well, I was thinking, since it is not a crazy success now, what if you made it…like, a game night."

"For seniors?" Stefan made it sound as if Elena had suggested a game night for gonorrhoea. "They can nurse a cup of coffee for three weeks. I won't sell any drinks."

"Hear me out," Elena said, getting excited about her idea all over again. "You are not making a mint on poker night anyway, and the guys that want to sit in the bar and drink can do it. But if you had tables set up for poker and bridge…"

"Bridge?" Stefan asked. "Bridge is not sexy."

"Not everything is sexy."

"My bar is." Stefan winked and Elena and Lexi shared a groaning glance.

"I think it is a good idea," Damon said and the whole table's incredulous attention turned to him. "But do it earlier. It is slow on Thursday afternoons."

"How would you know?" Stefan asked.

"I have eyes."

"There is no money in it," Stefan said.

"Giuseppe is lonely," Damon said. "Bored."

"Since when do you care if Dad is lonely?" Stefan asked quietly.

"Since now. I think you should give it a try."

"You know I have been thinking about doing an art class for seniors," Lexi said. "But most of them don't drive and the Art Barn is too far away for many of them to walk."

Transportation, Elena hadn't thought about transportation and it seemed like a giant piece of the puzzle.

"Surely someone in Town Hall could help us figure out a way to do some of this stuff," Elena said.

"Town Hall is pretty strapped," Stefan said. "The town is bankrupt."

"What about donations?" Elena asked, but Lexi shook her head.

"The community is just coming out of the recession and the schools do a lot of fundraising already. I'm not sure we can tap the community again."

"My foundation can help," Elena said.

"It is funny," Stefan said. "I keep forgetting who you are."

Elena laughed. "Me too. It is nice."

"I can give you the name of the Parks and Rec chair over at Town Hall." Lexi took a napkin and jotted down a name and phone number.

"So we are not doing a game night?" Stefan asked.

"Oh, we are totally doing a game night." Elena smiled at him. "And maybe a dance once you get the garage up and running. It sounds like our real problem is transportation."

"Fine, but how are we going to let them know?" Stefan asked. "I'm not paying to put an ad in the paper for something I'm already going to lose money on."

"I can make a flyer," Lexi said. "We just need somewhere to hang it. Somewhere central."

All four of them slowly glanced around. Two of the three men from Giuseppe's kitchen poker party were in the back booth, eating breakfast with their wives. "Rebekah needs a community bulletin board," Elena said. "Right by the door. I will talk to her about it."

"I will help you hang it," Damon volunteered. Stefan's startled and suspicious look wasn't entirely unwarranted. It was strange to listen to Damon offer something of himself and act like it was natural. Even Lexi was watching Damon from the corner of her eye as if the cyborg who had taken over Damon's body might at any point erupt from his skin.

"What has gotten into you?" Stefan asked his brother.

"It is a good idea." Damon shrugged and signalled the waitress for two cups of coffee.

"Why are you doing this?" Stefan asked Elena.

"It is what she does," Damon said. Elena blinked at him and his whole face softened. "Community," he elaborated. "You can't help yourself."

It was a different Damon sitting there, and Elena was wasted by this version of him. It was the version of him that had washed and combed all the tangles from her hair. She had no protection from him when he was like this, when he managed to embody everything she wanted and hadn't even realized was possible to find.

Strength, caring, knowledge, support.

Too much, she thought. Too much. She couldn't build a shelter strong enough to protect herself against him.

So Elena turned away, because there was no telling how long this would last. How close he would let her get before disappearing from her life again. It was safe in a way to love the version of him who would never love her back, but this version, she might become convinced of his feelings.

"But you are forgetting something," he said.

"No, actually, I made a list and it is pretty detailed—"

"You are not going to be here," Damon said.

Elena sat back hard against the padded red bench. "I'm in no hurry to leave," she said and Damon watched her as he took a sip of coffee.

 _Careful,_ his eyes said, _careful you are not substituting my dad for Africa. Careful you are not creating a long list of things that are more important than yourself._

Or maybe his eyes said, You have a booger. She didn't know. One night of sex hardly unlocked the code to his inscrutableness.

"Well, I need to get going," Lexi said, gathering her things, and Elena slipped out of the booth, carefully sidestepping Damon, who put out a hand to help her.

Lexi walked up to the cashier and Damon sent an intense look over to Stefan, who shrugged. "Lexi has been busy with some art exhibitions," he whispered.

The bell over the front door rang and the man in the Red Sox hat, Gary, and his tall partner in crime, Darryl, stepped into the café.

"Get back in the booth," Damon whispered and Elena slipped in. She recognized both of them, and neither made her felt safe. Gary made a detour to a booth across the café from them and immediately got out his phone, Darryl approached the counter where Lexi stood.

"Time to go," Damon said, his fingers on her elbow like little points of heat. She was bummed that she didn't even get coffee or to talk about the bulletin board with Rebekah, but she understood that those two men with whatever knowledge they had of her could end her time here in Mystic Falls. And she wasn't ready to be Elena Gilbert again.

Elena slipped out of the booth and let Damon shield her from the two cameramen.

"Hey, I figured out why you look so familiar," Darryl said. Elena stiffened, but he wasn't talking to her. He was talking to Lexi.

"You have seen me around town," Lexi answered and something in her tone made Elena turn around.

"No. You were on that morning show," Darryl said. "That America Today contest where they were going to move a factory to some small town that America voted on. Right?"

"Please, let me pass," Lexi said.

"No. I'm sure of it. I Googled that shit, you should see how many YouTube hits you have got. So is it true? Did you really let that guy fuck—"

"Get out of my café!" Rebekah cried.

Elena gasped but Damon made her start walking to the exit. "Stop, Damon." She dug in her heels. "Lexi—"

"Stefan can handle it," Damon said.

She yanked her arm free and turned just in time to see Stefan step between Darryl and Lexi, who was white as a ghost. As Lexi gathered her purse together, her hands shook so hard she dropped her keys.

"Christ, it was a question," Darryl said. "Nothing to get everyone all upset."

"You heard the woman," Stefan said, "leave."

"Calm down." Darryl peeked over Stefan's shoulder at Lexi. "I'm sorry. If I offended you—"

"You are offending me!" Stefan said and pushed the guy back. "You have been asked to leave."

Darryl lifted his hands as if to surrender and said, "I will take my coffee to go, then, Rebekah."

"Oh no," Damon whispered, just as Stefan wrapped his hands in the neck of the guy's shirt.

"What part of get the hell out of this café don't you get?" Stefan yelled, driving the guy backward across the café, towards the door.

Damon reached over and opened the door for his brother, and the two scuffled past.

"You need any help?" Damon asked.

"I got it," Stefan muttered and shoved the guy off the sidewalk, into the street.

Elena caught something out of the corner of her eye and glanced over at Gary in the Red Sox hat, whom she had totally forgotten about.

He was holding his phone toward her. Taking a picture.


	13. Chapter 13

"Oh no," Elena murmured just as Damon stormed past her toward Gary.

"It is sent. It is sent. You are too late." Red Sox threw his phone on the ground between them and tried to get away, only to trip backward over a stool and sprawl across the counter.

Damon wrapped his hand in the guy's shirt. "Who did you send it to?"

"News manager at TMZ."

Damon swore and heaved the guy to his feet, his fist cocking back.

 _Enough,_ Elena thought. _Look at the mess hiding from my family has created._

"It is okay." She put her hand on Damon's shoulder; every muscle under her fingers leapt and coiled. Damon would kill this man if she said the word. "Damon," she whispered. "Stop."

"What do you mean it is okay? This is what we were afraid of."

"It is what you were afraid of, Damon. I was afraid of my family. And I'm not anymore. Let the guy go."

Damon shot her an incredulous look. "I don't want to let him go. He has invaded your privacy, his friend has hurt Lexi."

"Well, then punch him. But don't do it because he sent that picture. Really." Elena smiled at Damon, wishing the dark seas that swirled in him could be calmed. "I'm okay."

"She is okay, man, I don't know why you have got your panties in a wad!" Gary said and Elena stepped aside as Damon, like his brother had, escorted the guy out of the restaurant by his neck. Elena followed, grabbing the phone from the ground.

Outside, Stefan was standing on the curb, watching Darryl scream at him from the green of the square across the street.

Damon threw Gary onto the asphalt of the street, his chest heaving, and his hands in fists at the end of his coiled, muscled arms. Gary was slow to pick himself up off the ground and Elena handed Damon the man's phone. Damon heaved it toward the fountain across the street.

"Go," Damon said. "You are not welcome here and you are not welcome at The Grill."

Gary ran across the street to get his phone.

"Are you okay?" Damon asked Stefan, who was watching both Gary and Darryl walked across the square.

Stefan nodded. "You?"

Damon nodded too and then reached out to grab Elena's hand, twining his fingers through hers. "I'm taking Elena home."

Stefan's heart was pounding. He watched Elena and Damon walked towards the Salvatore boarding house and shook out his hands trying to get rid of the pins and needles racing along his arms.

Whoa, Stefan thought. It had been a long time since he had done something like that. He wasn't a violent guy and he could run his mouth better than most, but that guy…that guy crossed a line.

Just thinking about the cornered, scared look on Lexi's face made him want to kick his ass all over again. Lexi was his friend. He had known her since pre-school. He wouldn't let anyone hurt her.

When he stepped back into the café, a couple of the folks still sitting at tables cheered and he did a little fake bow.

Rebekah wasn't at the cash register and he waited there for her to appear.

 _I wonder if she is going to be pissed,_ he thought. It was quite a scene he had created. Fistfights were not a part of the general vibe of Rebekah's Café.

Rebekah came from the kitchen.

"Where is Lexi?" he asked.

"She went out the back."

"Is she okay?"

"Rattled. Embarrassed. Said she wanted to be alone."

"I should have punched a couple of teeth out," Stefan said, looking out the window in the direction the asshole had gone. "I'm sorry, Rebekah. I didn't mean to make a scene. Has anyone paid you for the breakfasts—"

"You don't have to apologise," she said with a smile. "You did the right thing. Lexi is your friend. You are trying to protect her."

Stefan blinked. He had thought that she would be pissed at him for creating a scene in her café. "I thought you would be upset."

"Actually," she said, "I'm making nachos for lunch today. Served with my spicy bean mix, sour cream and salsa."

"That sounds delicious."

"I will bring the food over to the Grill at midday."

Stefan had no clue what this was about, but he would take it. "Okay. Thanks."

Rebekah winked at him. "I'm rewarding you for your heroic behaviour."

Stefan grinned.

She smiled back at him. "I need to get back to the kitchen. I will see you later, Stefan."

x x x

 _It is over_ , Damon thought as he walked across the square with Elena. He gripped her hand a little tighter, as if that would somehow matter, somehow keep her close.

This was of course the way it worked in his life and so he wasn't totally surprised. Gutted, yes. Surprised, no. He told her he wanted her and now she had to leave.

"I'm going to have to call Jeremy," Elena said.

Damon nodded.

"There will probably be some photographers here in the next few days."

"I imagine."

"Damon, I can't…I can't keep up with you. You are practically running."

"Sorry." Damon stopped and realized they were on the sidewalk in front of the Town Hall Hotel, the antebellum mansion turned boutique hotel.

He stared up at the peach façade instead of at her because he was afraid of what he would say if he looked at her.

"We can have you ready to leave in a few minutes," Damon said.

"I'm not leaving."

"Your family—" he said, arguing for the opposition because his heart leapt at her words.

"Can wait. They don't really need me. Or want me. They just want to control me. Use me as a political asset. That's all they have ever wanted."

"What do you want?"

Her silence was loaded and because he was a fool, he glanced at her.

"I want to stay," Elena whispered, holding his hand as hard as she could. "At least for a while—these ideas for the seniors, I think they could work and I would like to try."

Damon turned to face her fully, because he couldn't stand to mislead her. He couldn't stand for her to believe in something that would never come. "Don't stay for me," he said. "Don't stay for last night."

"Why not?"

Oh God, that bravery, that uplifted chin. "You are a Gilbert from Richmond. And you care so god-damned much. You haven't been in Mystic Falls three weeks and you are changing this town. That is you. I have an empty apartment and a family whose calls I don't return. I watch over people, some of them terrible people, I don't care about because they pay me a lot of money. That is me."

"Your life doesn't have to be that way."

"When Dad is taken care of, I'm going back to my job," Damon told her.

"You don't like your job."

"They offered me partner."

Elena blinked at him, her mouth falling open. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Damon brushed hair from the side of her face, away from the pink scar over her eye. "Because we were busy doing something else."

Her blushes were epic. And the effect on him was epic. He got hard and soft all at once. He wanted to show her all the things in his head that would really make her blush and he wanted to preserve that innocence, pull it close. Absorb it into his own dark life.

"What about Stefan and the Grill?" Elena asked.

"I'm not Stefan's partner. I help when I can and I leave when I have to. He understands that."

Elena pulled her hands free, her blush replaced by a furrowed brow and narrowed lips. Christ, he even liked that. The disapproving look of Elena Gilbert.

"You have got everyone warned away, don't you?"

Damon knew exactly what she meant and didn't pretend otherwise. So he nodded. "Yeah, I do. No one needs to get hurt."

"You think no one is hurt when you leave?" she asked. "Just because they don't show you, or tell you?"

The sun came out from behind the clouds and hit the windows of the Town Hall Hotel and Elena's face and hair making everything sparkled. He wanted to kiss her so badly.

"Damon—"

"Of course not, Elena," Damon snapped. "I'm not an idiot. But it is easier this way."

Elena shook her head. "Not for me. When you leave me you will know how I feel. And if you don't like it, stop looking at me that way. Stop offering to help me. Stay away—"

Damon barely even realized he was doing it but he was stalking her, until her back was pressed against one of the wide white pillars that ran up the Town Hall Hotel's front façade.

"You want me to stay away from you?" he whispered.

"No," she said. "But I'm not like your brother and I'm not like your dad. I won't make it easy for you to leave and pretend like you don't care. Because you do."

Damon pushed a strand of hair away from her eye. She had a three-star constellation at the bottom of her lash line. An obtuse triangle, right there. He touched it with the tip of a rough finger. _She deserves better than you. You don't deserve her,_ he tried to remind himself, but the current where he was standing was just too strong.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I do care. But what is between us won't work out long-term. You just haven't realized it yet."

Damon stepped back and turned away from her, because they were practically making out in the middle of town. He took another few steps, because the magnetic pull of her was outrageous and he was actually considering going inside and getting them a room since he was positive he would be hard-pressed to make it to the bar without kissing her.

"What did that guy mean about Lexi?" Elena asked when they started walking again, but this time with a wider distance between them. Damon didn't hold her hand or tuck it into his elbow. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"This summer a guy said some pretty crude things about her on television."

"Television? How?"

Damon explained the love affair Lexi had with the biggest asshole in the world, Lee Thompson, a famous columnist in Richmond, and how when she rejected him he got back at her on live television.

"Oh my God," she whispered. "I can't imagine anyone saying that about her."

"It was hard on her and apparently she has been pretty reclusive ever since. Stefan said Lexi has moved back to Mystic Falls from Richmond since."

"I hope Stefan kicked the crap out of that Darryl guy."

Damon laughed and, unable to fight it anymore, slid his arm over her shoulders. "Who knew you were so bloodthirsty?"

They were at the driveway of the Salvatore boarding house and Elena walked towards the front door but Damon stayed at where he was.

She turned, an invitation in her eyes. His blood leapt and he kept his hands in his pockets.

"You need to call your brother," he said.

Elena nodded, but the invitation didn't go away.

"I'm working on the bar. Stefan only lets me work when the place is closed and he opens at one today."

The same nod, but now her fingers toyed with the button on the bottom of her shirt and it slipped from the hole, revealing the skin of her belly and the top of her skirt. The glimpse of her belly button made his knees buckle.

"You were a virgin," Damon whispered, and that blush…he took a step towards her. Unable to stop himself.

"You noticed, huh?" He laughed at her deadpan delivery. "Well, I'm not anymore," she said. "And I'm…" She tilted her head, playing coy so perfectly, his guts twisted. Blood hammered to his dick. "…curious."

"I will come inside," he whispered. "But nothing changes."

She opened the door, her smile a mysterious womanly curl that was terrifying in its beguilement.

"That is what you think."

He had walked away from her so many times, once more should be a piece of cake. But it was impossible.

Damon followed her inside the house.

Elena felt him at her back, a breathing wall of heat, of man and intent, and she had no clue where she had found the courage to act the tease, but she had.

The second the door closed behind them, Damon spun her, pushed her up against it, away from him. His hands found the edges of her shirt and yanked, buttons scattered across the room.

Elena closed her eyes, so close to coming she couldn't stand it. One touch, one of those thick rough fingers between her legs, and it would be over.

And that was not what she wanted. She pushed away from the door and he stepped back; she turned and pushed him back farther until he was in the middle of the room, his chest heaving as he stared at her.

"Take off your shirt," she said.

One hand behind his head, Damon yanked it off and dropped it on the ground.

"You didn't let me touch you last night," she said.

"You sucked my dick."

Oh God, the words out of his mouth had such power. Such unbelievable force. It was a wild, hot punch of desire, low in her belly. "I did. But I didn't get to touch you." Elena stepped forward and ran her hands over his chest. Her short fingernails scraped across his nipples and he hissed.

"Do you like that?"

Damon reached out and did the same to her, through her bra. "Do you?"

"Yes. But you knew that." She circled him, running her hands over the muscles of his back and sides, down his butt. "What do you like?"

His laughter was knowing and rich, like silk and sunlight and dark chocolate and all the good touches. "Honey, everything you do to me, I like."

Was that true? Elena wondered. Or maybe it wasn't specific to her. But then Damon grabbed her hand and turned to her.

Oh, that face. Such magic in that face, it grew flowers under her skin, wild blooms on her heart. She was a garden of feminine delights when he looked at her like that.

"You can touch me wherever you want. We can do whatever you want, and I will love it, because it is you."

Elena wanted to tell him it was because it was the two of them, but she didn't want to scare him away. So she curled her hand into the front of his jeans and pulled him towards the bedroom.

"How many condoms do you have?"

"I'm not…" Elena stared up at the ceiling, trying to urge Damon out of this snail's pace he had set. "This…this isn't what you promised." She arched her hips up to him, trying to urge him into something a little more exciting than small gentle kisses to her neck.

Damon braced himself on his elbows and looked at her. "You were a virgin, Elena. I'm trying not to hurt you."

"You are not going to hurt me."

He made a disbelieving noise in his throat and went back to slow, sweet kisses. They were nice, and perhaps another time they could enjoy slow and sweet. But now she was hungry.

"Damon." She pinched him and he yowled.

"I am not made of glass. I like the way you make love to me. I like being rough and raw."

"You deserve—"

"What I want. And I want you. Just the way you are."

Damon laughed, a little huff of breath like she had made a joke, but she hadn't and she watched that knowledge seep into him. She couldn't argue with him. So she would have to show him.

 _Trust me,_ she thought. _I can love you and you can love me back and we can make this work._

Ten minutes later, mindless and crazy, Elena was pressed face-first into the mattress, his weight, solid and sweaty, on top of her.

"Damon," she gasped, pushing back at him with her hips because he was being too careful. Too slow.

"Stop it." His open palm smacked her ass, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that she groaned and clutched the railings of the headboard with both hands.

His laugh was wicked. As wicked as his breath against the nape of her neck, as wicked as the long slow press of his cock into her from behind.

"This is what you wanted," Damon breathed into her ear. Moving so slowly. As with everything she thought she wanted, he somehow made it more. Showed her what an illusion her desire was versus the reality of it.

Elena had been so convinced her loving him was something she could survive. She was used to not getting her happy endings. Joy, unless she brought it with her, was often a barely growing plant in the desert.

But he would devastate her when he left.

"Stop," she said and he did. On a dime. Inside her, she felt him twitch, his chest heaved. But he didn't move.

Elena shook her head and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, which made him moan and shake. Slowly, she slid over him. Forward and back, taking him and letting him go. Taking him and letting him go. His stillness was stone like. But she felt his wild heart, the beat of it inside of her.

 _I will hoard this,_ she thought, _because a drought is coming._


	14. Chapter 14

"You are going to need an industrial stove," Rebekah said, taking a tour through Stefan's imaginary kitchen between the bar and the garage. It was small, but with some tidy, clever planning, Stefan and Damon could make it happen. "I know where you can get one cheap."

"Where do we put the fridge?" Damon asked. She pointed to the corner and Damon boxed off a square, just like he had boxed off the place she had said he should put the stove and the fryer.

Stefan, leaning against the studs, looked like he was going to pass out.

"I can't afford this." Stefan shook his head. "I mean, not all at once."

"I can help." Damon took out his tape measure. He was being downright jaunty with it. Rebekah had just closed the café, and Stefan had called and asked her if she could come over and help him figure out what to do with the kitchen.

She hadn't expected Damon to act like he had so much invested. And she certainly hadn't expected the jaunty tape measure.

Stefan, however, looked stressed in a way that made her want to pulled him into her arms and let him rest his head on her lap.

Honest to God, after that scene today in the café and then later when she brought the nachos to Stefan, she sort of thought she had run a pretty large gamut of emotion towards the guy—but nope, add a little late-afternoon empathy to the list.

"I don't want to keep running to my big brother every time I need money," Stefan said. Damon stood and the tape measure slithered and snapped shut.

"Your big brother has money. A lot of it." Damon wrote a few more things in his notebook and then shoved it in his back pocket. "I think I have got a handle on this. Thanks, Rebekah."

"My pleasure," she said. "I didn't know you were a builder."

"I'm not, I just play one on TV." Rebekah blinked at the joke and Damon immediately calmed his smile, as if it were something he needed to be embarrassed of.

"I am planning on building a patio behind the café," she said. "It would—"

"I'm not looking for work," Damon said. "I probably won't be around to finish this."

"Oh God," Stefan groaned and rubbed his forehead. "Now you tell me?"

"I will make sure whoever takes over can do the job, don't worry, Stefan."

Stefan turned and hugged a two-by-four, banging his head against it. "Why did I let you talk me into this? I'm not ready."

"You are ready, Stefan. You are totally ready," Rebekah said.

Not entirely sure of her welcome she reached out and patted Stefan's shoulder, prepared to leave it at that, but he grabbed her hand and squeezed her hand hard.

Rebekah smiled at him and swallowed a giddy giggle. _That is very nice indeed,_ she thought.

Damon didn't act like anything was different. Judging by him, Stefan and Rebekah went around holding hands all the time. She on the other hand felt like a balloon, grounded only by his hold on her fingers.

"So what is the story with Elena?" Stefan asked.

Damon shrugged, but his nonchalance didn't fool anyone. He was wired. "She is talking to her brother."

"What are you going to do?" Stefan asked.

Rebekah remembered her mum when the sheriff asked her that after Dad died. _What are you going to do now?_ Mum hadn't yet figured out that her life was about to get better. Because at that moment, she just looked sad. Like a kid who had been left behind. Alone. A little scared.

Damon looked the same way.

But he smiled and said: "I'm going to go check on Dad. And then maybe take Elena for ice cream."

Stefan couldn't seem to lift his jaw up off the floor to say anything.

So Rebekah said, "Sounds good."

Damon walked out the door, waving goodbye to the few Saturday afternoon regulars who were coming in the door.

"I don't think I have ever seen him happy," Stefan said, watching him go.

"That is happy?" Rebekah asked, because at best Damon had seemed bittersweet.

"It is for Damon."

"He needs more practice," Rebekah said.

Stefan pulled her close to him. "Do you want to go watch a movie?"

Rebekah was breathless. "Just the two of us?"

"Yes."

"Sounds interesting."

x x x

Elena sat down on the sofa and finally, after two weeks and roughly twenty-seven years, she faced the music.

Jeremy picked up on the second ring and she imagined him with this cell phone on the edge of his desk, waiting for her call.

"I swear to God, Damon—"

"It is me. Elena."

There was a pause, a long sigh. "Elena. Are you okay?"

"I am. I'm good. But you should know, a picture of me is going to surface in the next little bit."

"What kind of picture?" His voice went all stern and serious.

"A guy took a picture of me in a café. Very innocent, but he sent it to some TMZ place? I don't have any clue what that is."

"Heavy-duty gossip show and website."

There was a brief pause.

"I guess it is time for me to come out of hiding."

"I can have a car pick you up and—"

"No. No, that is…I'm going to stay here."

"Where is here?"

"Mystic Falls. It is a tiny town about four to five hours away from Richmond."

"Are you really okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Have you even seen a doctor again?" Jeremy asked. "What about your stitches?"

"Damon took them out."

Jeremy's silence was deep and thick.

"You can't hide forever, Elena."

"For the first time in years, I'm not hiding," Elena said. "I'm just getting on with my life."

"In Mystic Falls?"

"It is not Dadaab, I would think that should satisfy everyone."

"Mum won't be satisfied until you are back in your old bedroom at the mansion."

"What Mum wants doesn't matter anymore."

"Well, listen to you…It is about time you realized that."

"It took me a while, but I'm done running from her and from who I am."

"Good, because my office has had about a million media requests for you. The Today Show, 60 Minutes, Newsweek, Redbook, the list goes on."

Elena put her head in her hand and started rubbing at the headache blooming behind her forehead. "I don't know what to do first."

"Well, first, I think you should let me come get you—"

"Jeremy, I'm not leaving."

"Okay, then issue a statement. You are going to have some photographers there, but they will lose interest pretty fast, I imagine, once they see you are not hiding anything. I can have Jill, my press secretary, look through the requests and pick out the best ones and we can start scheduling some things."

"Forward all the requests to me," Elena said. "I can sort through them. If I have questions, I will call Jill. I can use Joanie for support."

"At the foundation?"

"Yeah. I also have some thoughts for a community project down here."

Jeremy's laughter was a sweet sound from her childhood and she was reminded that her brother had been the first really good man in her life. He had managed to keep the sterling core of himself untarnished in the business of politics.

"You just can't help yourself, can you?"

"Apparently not."

"What is the project?"

"I'm starting a senior transportation initiative."

Jeremy laughed. "Mention that in your statement and no one will bother you."

"Not very sexy, is it?"

"The important stuff usually isn't. You can take the foundation over from Joanie. It can be yours to use however you want."

"That always came with strings attached." _Don't go to Africa and you can run the foundation however you want._

"You are a grown woman, Elena. You don't have to run halfway around the world to get Mum to stop controlling you. Cut the strings yourself."

"What about you?" she asked. Miranda and Jeremy were a team, of sorts. Locked in a weird symbiotic relationship.

"I entered into the family business, Elena. It is not so simple for me. I need her and she knows that."

Elena used to wish she had the relationship that her brother seemed to have with Miranda. They talked the same language, understood politics in a way that left her baffled and reeling. But now, listening to the resignation in his voice, she wondered if maybe she didn't have it easier. To not need her mother seemed like a blessing.

"I have a favour to ask." Jeremy took a deep breath and she imagined him pinching together that crease over his nose. "I could use your help on the campaign. Voters will respond to you and your story…I hate to say it, Elena, but they will be fascinated by your experience."

"By my story you mean my three weeks of horror?"

"Yes. It is ugly, I know. But it is a tight race for the seat in Congress, and I could use every bit of help I can get."

Jeremy would be an excellent congressman—and possibly president someday, if Miranda was to be believed.

Elena shifted on the steps, the need to hang up and run, to throw herself into something that was not touched by her family, something that was both simple and hard, something her family wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole was a very hard impulse to control.

But leaving Dadaab, finding her own life, meant living on the same continent as her very prominent family, and that required compromise. Compromise and backbone.

"I will help you at three different events. You pick which ones and let me know."

"Three events?"

"Yes."

"My choice."

"Yes."

"Three weeks from now, Tuesday, September 10, I have a fundraiser in Atlanta. It can be your first public appearance."

Elena looked up at the ceiling. Three weeks seemed very soon. "Mum and Dad will be there?"

"Of course."

She nodded. Then it was perfect. Well, as perfect as she could hope for.

"Okay, I will do it. But on one condition."

"This should be good."

"You come and get me."

"What?"

"You come out here and get me. Just you. No people. No driver. Just you, and stay for the weekend."

"In Mystic Falls?"

"Have you ever in your life been just Jeremy, not Jeremy Gilbert?"

"Once," Jeremy said, surprising her. "It didn't seem real."

Something in his voice made Elena feel so bad for him. Like she was perhaps the lucky one. "Come and get me in ten days and I'm yours for the fundraiser."

Jeremy promised and they said their goodbyes.

She hung up and stared at the fireplace. She missed Damon.

Three weeks. All of this would be over in three weeks.

If she was going to survive on the memories of this time, she'd better make more.

Her heart a bewildering combination of heavy and light, she stood and went to find him.

x x x

Damon carried the grocery bags through the back door to Giuseppe's house and set them on the counter.

"I don't like bananas," Giuseppe said from his spot at the table. His hand was worrying the handle of that cane.

"Then don't eat them."

"I don't like wasting food."

"I will take the bananas." This had seemed like such a good idea when he left The Grill. His father needed to eat food that wasn't beige, so he had stopped by the grocery store.

"I can't eat apples. My teeth."

Damon sighed, braced his hands on the counter. "This is what I get for trying to help."

"I didn't ask for help."

"You asked me to stay!" he cried.

"Stay. Not get me fruit. You hired that girl for this."

Damon nearly smiled, it was a good thing he never expected a radical change of heart from Giuseppe.

"The question is, where is Stefan? Why isn't he making sure you have some fresh food?"

Giuseppe's very long silence made him turn around.

"Look in the fridge." Giuseppe bit off the ends of all the words like cigars he couldn't wait to smoke. Damon didn't move and Giuseppe shoved his cane into the handle on the fridge and used it to pull open the door.

Inside there were bags of grapes and peas.

"The peas don't hurt my teeth," he said. "Stefan knows that and he brings me some every week."

"I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know. You don't want to know anything about your brother."

Giuseppe had never said that before, and while it was true, and Damon had lived with it for a long time, and he had felt a lot of things about it, he had never been ashamed. But with Giuseppe's eyes on him, he was ashamed that he had run so far and so fast and coming back hurt like it did.

"You and your brother used to be friends."

"We are friends."

"Not like you were."

"Are you hungry?" Damon asked, dodging the subject, like it was grenade lobbed at his head. "You want a sandwich?"

"You got peanut butter?"

"No. I have turkey and lettuce."

Giuseppe made a thick noise in his throat and Damon smiled as he pulled out two pieces of wheat bread and the cold cuts he had bought.

"Stefan says you are helping with the bar."

"I knocked down a wall."

"He said you are building the kitchen."

"I'm just helping while I'm here. That is all. At some point I have to go back to work."

"I thought you were working now. Elena."

Damon made the same thick noise in the back of his throat, not yes, not no, not much more than I acknowledge that you are talking to me.

"If your job is like that, I understand why you love it."

"Love it?" Damon put some of the low-fat mayonnaise he' had bought on the bread and then carefully made sure Giuseppe couldn't see the label. Giuseppe would put mayo on everything including cardboard, but the low-fat kind would get a very turned-up nose.

Giuseppe raised his brows. "You don't?"

"Love is a stretch."

"That is a shame. You should love your job."

"Like you loved yours?" Every day at three his father had walked out that door, the newspaper tucked under his arm, the same dour expression on his face.

Damon put the second slice of bread on top, trying to hide the tomato he had slipped in there, and turned to face Giuseppe, whose dry-eyed earnestness made him pause.

"Of course I did, Damon. Did you…do you think I didn't?"

"No. I didn't think you cared one way or another about your job."

 _Jesus Christ, why does he look so damn hurt. Or shocked,_ Damon thought. On the very mysterious list of things Giuseppe loved, Lillian and mayonnaise were the only sure bets. Stefan maybe a distant third. On a good day.

"Did you think I loved you?"

The plate clattered onto the table. That look, that slightly accusing, mostly wounded look on his face was utterly repellent—it would have blown Damon halfway across the world if the counter didn't stop him.

"You should eat the sandwich." Damon turned, wrapped up the bread.

Giuseppe sighed heavily. "I did. I loved you. And I loved the bar, and Stefan. I loved Lillian." His voice broke. "I loved my life, very much. I'm a grouchy son of a bitch, Damon, but I loved my life. Everyone should."

Everyone should. Like it was a choice. _Oh, you know, instead of egg salad, I will love my life,_ Damon said to himself.

Elena, her face of bruises, cracking jokes to the doorman, sitting on that pier, kissing him, despite parents who didn't respect her, all that she had seen in Haiti and Japan and Africa, and being kidnapped by pirates, she had made that choice.

"I don't love tomatoes," Giuseppe said. "But nice try."

There was a knock on the door and Giuseppe made a giant valiant effort to stand but Damon patted him back down.

"I got it."

He stepped into the living room just as the front door opened and Elena walked in, holding a bag.

Damon couldn't stop himself from smiling. He felt happy.

The thought was a hand clap in a quiet field, scattering a thousand birds from a thousand branches. This feeling that came in the room with her, that walked into his life with her—this was happy. And he spent so much time building walls and dams to keep it away from the blackness that was the rest of his life, as if this light might somehow infect him.

What if he just let it happen?

What calamitous event would take place if he…if he just let himself be happy? There were months, years ahead for him to be a miserable son of bitch when Elena was gone. So why not be happy now?

"What is in the bag?" Damon asked with a smile.

"What—" Elena had forgotten she was even carrying a bag. Every thought abandoned her head like it was a crime scene the second he smiled at her like that.

Easy. Loose.

Happy.

"I brought ice cream." Elena lifted the bag.

"Did someone say ice cream?" Giuseppe yelled from the kitchen.

"Is it…is it okay that I came? Stefan said you would be here."

Damon nodded and took the bag from her. "I'm happy you are here," he said and, unable to help herself, Elena smiled back at him. "Did you talk to your brother?"

Right. Reality. She nodded. "I promised to go with him to a fundraiser in Atlanta in three weeks. But…" She put her chin up, making a declaration, putting her flag in the sand. "I'm coming back."

"I told you—"

"I know what you told me, but I'm telling you. I love you, Damon. And I will come back for you."

"What if I'm not here?"

"Then it is your loss."

x x x

"Where does Lexi live?" Elena asked on Friday morning. It was raining again, water throwing itself against the window from grey gloomy clouds. It was a day for staying in bed, but she had plans.

Damon rolled over and sighed up at the ceiling. "I just need a few hours of sleep. Just a few." But he was smiling, as much as he did.

"You weren't complaining an hour ago."

Damon turned toward her and brushed hair back from her forehead, his thumb across the scar.

"You are funny when you try to flirt," he said.

Yes, she was working on that. As well as talking dirty and getting used to this…to lying in bed with him, while the sweat dried on their bodies, while the memories of what had made them so sweaty were wrapped in paper and stored away to be taken out later.

Elena was getting used to his half-smiles, his casual touches. Just as she was sure he was getting used to hers.

"She lives outside the town centre. I will drive you."

"If it clears up I would like to walk."

"Are you forgetting the four photographers yesterday?"

Her statement had been sent out Sunday. The photographers not turned off by the words senior programming had shown up on Tuesday and taken a few pictures. They were more polite than Damon had been.

"I am." Elena grinned at his scowl. "Because who cares. They got the picture and I'm sure they have moved on."

Damon appeared dubious. "What are you doing with Lexi?"

"Oh, poor Damon, are you upset because I won't be lying in bed all day waiting for you to come home and have sex with me?"

"Yes." Damon was joking, he could hardly keep the pride out of his eyes. Out of his touch. His fingers slowly gathered the sheet, pulling it from her chest, revealing her skin in inches, starts and stops. Her heart started a tugging rhythm. "Are you meeting with her to talk about the senior programming?"

"Yep."

His fingers stopped pulling the sheet. "Suddenly my mood is gone."

"Senior art programs don't get you hot?"

Damon rolled onto his back.

"Shuttle services?" Elena straddled him, the sheet over her shoulders. "Game nights?"

"Please stop. Honestly." Damon missed his calling for the stage, he could have been the world's best straight man in a comedy duo. She rewarded his comic genius with a long, slow wet kiss.

"Something is getting you hot." She wiggled against his growing erection.

His hands cupped her hips, pressing her harder to him.

"Is it bridge?" Elena asked, kissing his neck. "Maybe some senior stretch classes?" She kissed his chest, her heart thrilling at his laughter. She kissed her way over his chest and down his belly.

She licked his erection and Damon arched up, his hand cupping her head, tangling in her hair.

"I know." She shook off the sheet, grinning up at him. "Ballroom dancing. That is what's making you hot."

Damon rolled her over, kissing her breasts, her neck, the skin of her shoulder. The man had incredible condom skills, he had the thing on before she stopped laughing, before she fully understood his plan.

And then he was inside of her, high and hard and perfect, and Elena wasn't laughing anymore.

"You," he said, grabbing the iron railing of the headboard.

And that was all he said until they both cried out their pleasure.


	15. Chapter 15

On Wednesday morning, Damon put down the phone at the bar and looked around for a pen and a piece of paper. "What the hell, Stefan?" he cried. "Don't you have anything to write with?"

"It is a bar, Damon." Stefan slapped a chewed-up pencil and a napkin in front of him. "Not an office. What do you need to write down anyway?"

"George said he would come and look at the electrical—"

"George is like seven hundred years old."

Damon shook his head. "I still trust him more than I trust some guy from Richmond I have never met."

Stefan knocked on the bar, nervous tension just rolling off him. "Something on your mind, Stefan?"

"Hey, we need to make an arrangement," his brother said. "About this loan you are giving me."

Strange. Stefan didn't ever talk about arrangements. "I will pay for the renovation, help with some of the start-up costs with the food."

"How much?"

"As much as it takes."

"Give me a number."

"Why?"

"Because you are going to leave! You are going to leave and who knows when the hell you will be back, or when I will hear from you, and this is my bar. My business. And I need to have some kind of control."

No doubt Stefan expected Damon to argue. He actually looked slightly nervous standing there. Damon wanted to pat his shoulder, tell him it was all right, that he was, in fact, doing the smart thing.

Rebekah was good for Stefan.

 _Or maybe it is just your brother realizing he can't count on you,_ Damon thought.

The thought, even though it was the truth, was uncomfortable and he shied away from it.

"Ten grand," Damon said. "I can transfer the money to whatever account you want."

Stefan's mouth fell open, and he was back to being the grateful younger brother. "That is really generous, Damon; you know I will pay you back—"

"I know, Stefan. I know. It is okay."

Stefan nodded and they both looked away, towards the two-by-fours that framed the future kitchen. It looked good, like the beginning of something.

"Hey." Stefan braced his hands wide on the bar. "I had an idea—"

"Uh-oh."

Stefan didn't make any snappy comeback and Damon glanced up, only to find his brother wearing a slightly disappointed look on his face.

"Tell me your idea."

"A party. Rebekah called it a menu…thing. A reveal."

"Sounds all right. When?"

"When can you get the kitchen done?"

"The kitchen isn't getting done for a long time, Stefan. Three weeks if you are lucky, a month and a bit if you are not."

Stefan screwed up his face. "Okay, that is a minor problem. But I can put a grill in the back, do the prep at my house."

Damon laughed.

"What is so funny?"

"The prep—you sound like you know what you are talking about."

Stefan smiled. "Make fun if you want, but I'm good. Even Rebekah thinks so."

"Well, if Rebekah thinks so." Damon gave him a sideways teasing look but Stefan didn't stop his beaming.

"When do you want to have this party?"

"Next Saturday night. Saturday night is a good night for a party. It will give me some time to get things organized."

"Do it. Let me know what I can do to help."

Stefan went back to polishing his glasses, sliding the fancy ones in the rack over the bar. Damon had plenty of work to do, but this was nice. It was good to see his brother so pumped.

"What is going on with Rebekah?" Damon expected evasions but Stefan just smiled, holding his arms out to the side, like he had nothing to hide.

"What can I say? I'm a really lucky guy."

"It is good to see you this happy," Damon said and he was surprised by the oily residue of jealousy that clung to the words, that coated his stomach. And his brother…his brother knew.

"What about you and Elena?"

The glowing coal in his chest took a hit. He shook his head.

"Come on, man," Stefan said. "You can't stand there and say nothing is going on. I caught you guys making out at the driveway last night."

"I'm leaving in two weeks." Damon tucked the napkin in his pocket and pushed the pen back across the bar. It was good to say that, a reminder. He should say it more often. He would be leaving in two weeks.

At some point, Damon had to pull the plug on this thing and in two weeks was as good as any.

"What? What about Elena?"

The anger was a brushfire, sudden and out of control. Stefan was just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, holding a match. "What about her? She is Elena Gilbert. Her brother is probably going to be president someday, her father is the Governor of Richmond. She grows gardens in the desert. Gardens." His voice cracked and he turned away from his brother. "She has no business hanging around here planning a senior shuttle service and playing house with me."

His hands were full of humility and anger and this was an unsolvable problem. Elena was leaving. She should leave. Yes, she said she would come back, but by then he would be gone. Her life was on a totally different trajectory than his and he had zero illusions about that. There were no fantasies he was spinning in his head—instead, the last few days, the days to come, they were a long slow bleed out.

And it was inevitable.

"What are you going to do?"

 _After Atlanta, I will be right back here. And I know you don't want to hear it, but I have to say it. I'm coming back for you._

That was what Elena said to him.

"Go back to my life." That sounded pathetic. He sounded pathetic, and he wasn't. The absence of Elena from his life was not going to reduce him, and Damon needed to remind himself of that. "I have been offered partner."

Partner in a company that protected dirty politicians and child pop stars. A job that he took when the last dream he had was ripped out from under his feet. A dream he didn't have the courage or the stomach to try to replace.

"Congratulations. That is great. Isn't it?"

Damon swallowed his dark, gloomy laughter. "It is. Thank you," he said.

Stefan knocked once on the bar and then turned to walk away but then, last minute, he whirled back around. "This is probably going to make you run right out the door, but I'm still going to say this: I don't know when you got the idea that you don't deserve her. Or that you are less than her. It is bullshit, Damon. You are a good man. The best. And she would be lucky to have you in her life."

That hero worship in his brother's eyes—that was the black bag Damon ran from. The hero worship that he didn't deserve.

"Do you know why I stay away from here?" Damon asked.

"No," Stefan whispered.

"So you will keep thinking that."

So that someone in his life would think the best of him.

"No. You know why you leave?" Stefan asked. "Because you start believing it."

x x x

Damon watched from the corner of his eye as Stefan poured Elena a glass of wine and slid it across the bar. He approved of the drink—she looked really stressed-out. Her brother was going to arrive any minute and she seemed torn between being excited and wanting to run away.

He understood the inclination—exactly.

"It is noon, Stefan," Elena protested. "On Friday."

"And you look like if you don't relax, your head is going to pop off."

"I'm just…just nervous, I guess," she said and ran a hand down her blue cardigan. Now that her bruises were nearly gone and the blue cardigan actually looked good on her. "I haven't seen him in a while. I mean, if you don't count the hospital in Nairobi and the plane back to Richmond, I haven't seen him in over a year."

"What are you worried about?" Damon asked, propping up the broom and leaning on it.

"He seems sad. And stressed," she said.

"He is running for Congress," Stefan said. "Seems stressful."

"He says he has something he needs to tell me. Something important. And I don't know, it is stupid but I just…I just want him to like me. And I want to like him. I want us to be as regular a family as we can be."

Stefan shot a sharp glance towards Damon. "I know the feeling. He is going to love you, Elena. You are totally loveable and if he doesn't, it is his problem."

Damon nodded and after a moment Elena smiled. She blew out a long breath that lifted her bangs, and took a sip of wine. "Thank you, boys. You do know how to give a girl a pep talk."

"While you are waiting, how about you grate some ginger." Stefan pressed a cheese grater and a giant knob of ginger into her hands.

Damon had just finished cleaning up after the plumbing guys; the new metal sink gleamed in the bright sunlight coming in through the window.

They had all been working hard, Elena harder than anyone. He had gone to help her buy the van, a very serviceable, very white, big van. With room for eight, air-conditioning, and storage in the back for walkers. She had cooed over and stroked that van like it was a new baby.

She had been answering interview questions at night, talking to Earl Anthes in Public Health during the day about expanding the service to include doctors' appointments—and now, as she waited for her brother to arrive, she grated ginger for Stefan.

"What the hell is the ginger for?"

"It is my secret ingredient."

Stefan sounded so strangely pompous that Elena lifted her eyebrows at Damon. "Yeah, Damon," she said before taking a sip of wine, "secret ingredient."

The front door opened and in through the slice of light walked Jeremy Gilbert, looking as if he had been sprinkled with gold dust. If one could forget that Elena was a Gilbert, because she carried all her gold dust on the inside, one could never forget what family Jeremy was from.

His pedigree and in turn Elena's was right there, on his high forehead, his brown eyes and the intelligence and honour that came through them. His nose. The way he held himself. Jeremy was regal.

"Jeremy!" Elena cried, setting down the ginger and jumping off her bar stool to go hug him.

"This place is in the middle of nowhere," Jeremy said, hauling his sister into his arms. The two Gilberts closed their eyes as they hugged and Damon had to look away, only to find himself meeting Stefan's eyes.

They didn't hug. They made bad jokes. Damon suddenly felt the lack in his life. How much of it could they change, he wondered. How much of their past could they rewrite?

"Look at you," Jeremy whispered, leaning back to examine his sister's face. "The bruising is almost all gone."

"Just the lovely eyeshadow." She closed her eyes, showing the nicely healed skin on the lids.

"You are beautiful, Elena," Jeremy said, kissing her forehead. "How are your ribs?"

"They are fine. Everything is fine." She gave her brother a squeeze as if to prove it.

"Damon," Jeremy said, his arm still over Elena's shoulder. But his other hand was held out towards Damon. "Good to see you again."

"I thought you were angry I kidnapped her." Damon shook Jeremy's hand.

"I'm over it," Jeremy said, with a smile that gave every impression that they were friends, but at the same time created a clear distance around the guy. He wore dress pants but his shirtsleeves were rolled up, the same uniform he wore weeks ago when he had turned Damon's life upside down.

Damon wasn't a huge fan of Jeremy, but even he had to respect the guy when he was in this form. He had gravitas.

"She is her own woman," Jeremy said, giving Jeremy a jiggle. "She wants to hide out in a bar in a small town in the middle of nowhere, that is her right."

"The bar is called The Grill," Stefan spoke up.

"This is my brother, Stefan," Damon said and Jeremy walked over to shake Stefan's hand.

"And this is my bar," Stefan said, after they shook. "Can I get you something?"

"It is noon," Jeremy said and Elena leaned forward to grab her glass of wine.

"I know, Jeremy," she said with the great, naughty twinkle in her eyes that Damon was growing to love. "That is why it is fun."

Idiot, he thought, tired of lying to himself. He wasn't growing anything. It was grown.

 _I love her._

 _You love her, Damon Salvatore,_ he thought.

To his feet, across the sky, he loved her. Everything he felt for her was accumulated and gathered and the gross weight was he loved her.

"Hell, why not?" Jeremy said, pulling up stool. "I'm on vacation."

"Damon? You want a beer?" Stefan asked. Hope was in his eyes. Not in Elena's though; she knew better than to hope for too much from him. She may love him, and may actually be convincing herself that he loved her too, but she had no expectations of him.

"Yeah, I would love one."

Elena turned radiant eyes towards Damon and pulled out the stool on the other side of her. Sitting between her brother and him, Damon could see she was unbearably happy.

And it was a good feeling to give her that.

Damon kissed her head as he sat and caught Jeremy's surprised look.

 _That is right,_ Damon thought, _your sister is messing with the bodyguard again._

Jeremy didn't look happy about it, but that didn't surprise Damon.

"So, what is it you need to tell me?" Elena asked Jeremy.

"The news hasn't hit Mystic Falls?" Jeremy asked, rubbing a hand over his face.

The man did look stressed.

"What news?" Elena asked, cupping her hand over her brother's.

Jeremy glanced around the room, as if unsure a dive bar was the right place for news-breaking.

"It can wait," Jeremy said, smiling like all was right in his world. "Why don't you tell me about this project of yours."

The man could lie, Damon would give him that.

x x x

Damon had never planned a party in his life. As a kid, he put the chairs where Lillian told him to and stayed away from the food until the guests arrived.

But Saturday night he was the commissioner of all of Stefan's party prep.

 _Why am I surprised?_ he wondered. This was his whole life with Stefan.

"Hey!" Damon was pouring ice into the wells in the bar when Jeremy came in wearing jeans and a polo shirt.

Politician at rest, Damon thought.

"Hi." Damon put the bucket on the ground.

"Elena told me to meet her here." Jeremy looked around the empty room. "Have you seen her?"

"She is trying out the shuttle schedule and picking up some people," Damon said. "She should be back soon. How was your night at the Town Hall Hotel?"

"That place is amazing. Beautiful."

Damon grabbed the white Christmas lights he was told to put around the table where Stefan was going to set up the food.

"You want some help?" Jeremy asked, pointing to the lights.

"Hanging lights? Sure."

"I thought this was a party?" Jeremy asked.

"Stefan is out back cooking food. Elena is picking up the guests. It will start soon."

Damon pulled the masking tape out of his back pocket and tore a strip off for Jeremy.

"So, Elena looks good," Jeremy said as they began taping the lights. "Seems good too, better than she has been in years. This idea of hers for the senior shuttle, it is great. It could be a national initiative, if she wanted to do it."

Damon stretched out the lights across the front of the table.

"It kills me to say this, but you were right," Jeremy said. "You were right to bring her here."

"It was her idea."

"Still. You took good care of her."

"I'm not taking any payment," Damon said, taping the lights to the table.

"Why?"

Damon plugged in the lights and the table lit up.

"I love her."

Jeremy stared him down. "How does Elena feel?"

"How do you think?"

"She loves you."

With great satisfaction, Damon nodded.

"My family won't like this."

"I don't care if they do or don't."

"Elena will. In the end, she will. She always has, that is why she has run away, because she wants Mum to love her like Elena wants to be loved and can't stand that she doesn't."

Jeremy's words had the weight and heft of truth. They hurt when they hit him.

But they galvanized him too, put his feet down firmly into his purpose.

"I won't be so easy to get rid of this time," Damon said.

"Excuse me!" cried a voice from the other room and Damon happily left Jeremy, and his jaw on the ground, to enter the bar.

It was Andie Starr, the star of the reality show, who breezed in the front door, a short man wearing glasses beside her.

"Welcome," Damon said. "Come on in."

"My crew led me to believe this was a dump," Andie said, looking around with the icy white imperial beauty that had made her famous.

"Your crew has bad taste," Damon said, not about to listen to anyone, not even beautiful television stars, make aspersions against his brother's hard work. His own hard work.

Andie smiled, like a shark trying to be friendly. "Agreed. Do you have a decent Chardonnay back there?"

"Yes, we do. For you?" Damon asked the man with her. In his own estimation, he was doing all right being the bartender.

"A Manhattan."

Damon had no clue what was in a Manhattan. So much for being a bartender. Luckily, Jim Gensler, Stefan's weekend bartender, came up behind him.

"Got it," he said and Damon was saved.

"Wow," Jeremy said, entering the room and catching sight of Andie. "Are you who I think you are?"

"I am," Andie said and then did a very cool double take. "Are you who I think you are?"

"Jeremy Gilbert," Jeremy said. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise." Andie pulled another stool toward her. "Have a drink, Jeremy. I saw your speech at the Democratic National Convention. You have a lot of interesting ideas about schools."

It was as if Andie opened the dam and people flooded in after her. The room filled quickly. Damon couldn't be sure if it was the promise of free food and drink or curiosity about the expanded bar or even just the community coming out for a party, but it didn't seem to matter.

There were a lot of smiles. A lot of laughter. The crowd spilled into the garage, where Stefan and Damon had set up extra chairs and tables. Jim's wife, Missy, and her sister did some table service, getting drinks.

Damon worked the keg and answered questions.

"Where is the food?" Bill Turner asked, having been ousted from his usual seat at the bar by Andie. Who was deeply immune to his sideways glares.

"Stefan is putting his finishing touches on it."

"Poison, you mean."

Damon shook his head. "Rebekah is supervising. I think it is going to be good."

Elena poked her head in the front door, her eyes bright, her hair tied into a high ponytail.

 _Christ, she is pretty,_ Damon thought. She was more than pretty. Captivating, that was what she was. Each look at her invited another look, revealed another facet of her beauty, another piece of her untarnished spirit.

There were times, looking at her, Damon was aware of how dirty his hands were. Figuratively and in reality. She would be wiser to find someone else. Jeremy didn't have to tell him that, he knew it better than anyone.

But Elena loved him, and Damon was done pushing that away. He was done pretending that he didn't want her in his life so badly he was sick with it.

"Can you give me a hand?" Elena asked.

Damon stepped out the door to help her unload a minivan full of Giuseppe's friends.

They were all so grateful, their smiles wide. The women had put on jewellery and bright lipstick. All of them walked with a special bounce in their step.

A bunch of people who hadn't been to a party in a long time, going to a party.

There was plenty to smile at.

Mostly Damon just stood there to give them a hand, to pull the folded-up walkers and a few odd canes from the back. They all got inside without a broken hip and Elena blew out a long breath.

"How is it going in there?" she asked.

"Good. Full."

"Is Jeremy here?"

"Andie Starr has him cornered."

Her eyes opened wide as she laughed.

"Poor guy. What about the food?"

"Not out yet."

Elena nodded and then turned to press a big fat kiss on his cheek. Her happiness was like champagne bubbles, sweet and plentiful, catching light and turning to gold.

"It worked, huh?" Damon asked, stroking her arms.

"Like a charm. Sign up at Rebekah's or call the parks and rec department. I got seven people in the van and it took me about twenty-five minutes to grab them all. It worked!"

The kiss on the cheek wasn't enough. Elena deserved more. She deserved everything, so Damon wrapped his arms around her, nice and tight.

 _It is like you are an envelope,_ Elena had said the other day when he had hugged her like this.

"You did good, honey," Damon told her. "You are building something really important here."

"I couldn't have done it without you." Her voice was muffled by his chest, but he still heard her.

"That is not true—"

Elena pulled back, her brow furrowed. "Stop. Stop right there. For weeks your brother and I have been leaning on you hard. None of this would have happened without you and I think you should take some credit for it."

"Elena…"

"Don't shake your head at me, Damon. Don't you dare minimize what you have done. None of this would have happened without you. You are as much a part of my senior shuttle project and Stefan's menu reveal as we are."

Damon knew it. Of course he did. His mother had said a long time ago that there were people who were flowers and there were people who were watering cans. Stefan was a flower. Elena was a flower.

It was a privilege to help them.

It was a privilege to be in their lives.

"I will be here," Damon said, her hair against his lips like little live wires.

"What?"

"When you come back from Atlanta." As the words came out, her face became brighter. Her eyes wider and, he could see it, her heart bigger. "I will be here when you come back."

x x x

"Are you honestly just going to sit there?" Stefan asked. He was sweating. He was sweating like the pig before it was shot, cut up, and made into the ribs he was slicing on the giant table they had moved to the alley behind the bar.

"I am," Rebekah replied as she sipped the white wine in her glass.

Stefan was losing his mind. "I could use your help," he snapped. He piled the ribs onto the big metal tray that was going to be put on the buffet in the garage.

He had the coleslaw, ribs, and cornbread ready to go. Bottles of his sauce were waiting. Stacks of napkins a mile high sat on the long planks of wood over sawhorses he had set up.

Now he just had to slice the brisket.

But while he sliced, the ribs would get cold. The cornbread already was.

"Should I put the cornbread on the grill to heat up?"

"You could."

"Jesus, Rebekah! Tell me what to do!" He threw his hands up in the air and barbecue sauce splattered into his eye. Swearing, he grabbed one of the seven thousand towels he had lying around and tried to get it out.

"Look at yourself, Stefan," she said as she smiled. "Look at what you have done. You don't need my help—"

"You are insane. I don't know how to work this grill. Half the meat is overcooked—"

"It is still delicious, and you will learn. No one in there expects competition-quality food."

"No, they expect me to poison them."

"And you won't do that, so you are ahead of expectations."

"Is that why you won't help?" he asked, sounding like a whiny, petulant kid even to his own ears. "Because you know it sucks?"

"No, baby," she said and his whole body reacted to the endearment. "I'm not helping you because this is your party. Your menu."

"You are just abandoning me in my hour of need?" He was cutting the brisket too thick, there would never be enough for the mob inside the building. Good God, what made him think free beer was a good idea? What made him think any of this was a good idea?

 _I just wanted to have a place where people would come to celebrate. Have a good time and some drinks. Maybe play cards once in a while._

"This is your hour of triumph," she said. "You have done it. You."

"And you and my brother and Elena—"

"You, Stefan. You. We helped, as friends do, as people invested in your success do. But you did this. I think you have got yourself tied up into a knot over Damon, convinced yourself that you need him so badly, you can't see what you have done. You are not blind, Stefan, and I know you have got a healthy ego in there. Look. Look at what you have done. It is amazing."

Stefan smiled. "You are right. I will make this work."

Rebekah took another sip of her wine. "You will."

Quickly, Stefan put the cornbread on the grill, away from the smouldering coals so that it could warm up a bit but not burn. He sliced the rest of the brisket, poured some more of his barbecue sauce over it, and then he wiped his hands and walked around the table to the bottom of the steps.

Rebekah continued sipping at her wine. It was the sexiest thing he had ever seen, that was what she was. And it wasn't just her body in those clothes, or the feminine knowledge in her eyes, it was the smile on her face, the brain in her head. The kink in her spine from being on her feet all day. It was her standards and her drive.

It was the bravery with which she tried, every damn day, to beat her personal best.

"I'm so glad you are here," he said.

"Me too," she whispered.

He knew he had to do this. "I like you, Rebekah."

"Oh."

"I really like you," he told her astonished face. "I mean…I think you are beautiful and absolutely wonderful."

"You don't have to say that—"

"I know I don't. But I want you to know you are very important to me."

Rebekah's eyes widened. "Stefan…"

"I want you," he said, leaning forward to sip at her lips. "I need you."

"Likewise," she said, kissing him back.

"Are you kidding me?" Damon yelled and they turned to see him halfway out the back door. "I'm working my ass off inside and you are making out?"

"Sorry, Damon." He gave Rebekah one last kiss and Rebekah jumped off from the stool. "We are ready to take the food in."

"I'm going to sneak inside," Rebekah said, giving him a squeeze. "This is your moment."

"I can't carry all the food by myself," he said.

Damon grabbed the big silver tray of coleslaw. "I have got your back, Stefan. Lead the way."

With towels, Stefan grabbed the cornbread from the grill and then picked up the brisket, balancing one on each hand. Damon followed suit with the beans.

The ribs would be on the second trip.

Stefan took a deep breath at the doorway and then stepped into the bar.

"Hey!" Bill called. "That smells good, Stefan."

"Yeah," Max, sitting next to him, yelled. "I i's a cruel trick, Bill. Don't get your hopes up."

"That's it, Max. You don't get any," Stefan called out.

People made space for him. Rebekah, beaming, started to clap and it caught on and gathered steam around the room. Elena, her brother—who wasn't all that bad—Andie, they all clapped and cheered.

His brother was at his back, his girl was setting up the buffet table. His dad was the first person in line.

I did it, Stefan thought. And he had never been happier.


	16. Chapter 16

By the time the place finally cleared out around one A.M., Damon was done. He was done smiling. He was done making small talk. He was done with barbecue sauce.

There was a good chance he would be smelling barbecue sauce for the next week.

Elena and Jeremy took the seniors home in shifts as some of them started to nod off in their seats.

Rebekah had left hours ago, because she had to be up early to work at the café. Stefan had kept the party going, however, until the keg went dry.

"Good party, brother," Damon said as he stacked chairs so Stefan could sweep.

Stefan nodded, still beaming. "I need to figure out the grill a little better, and that coleslaw was disgusting, but yeah, I feel pretty good about it."

"This is from the guy who used to love cold hot dogs."

"You ate beans from the can, so you don't have a lot of room to talk."

They stacked more chairs, swept the floors, working side by side in a way that filled Damon to the top with satisfaction. _Why did I deny this for so long?_ he wondered.

"You and Rebekah are getting on well," he said, just to make conversation.

"Very well."

"You know," Damon said, feeling so good for his brother, so happy for him, for this life he had created, "if the bartender and the breakfast café owner are going to live happily ever after, they are going to need to work on their schedules."

"She is amazing, isn't she?" Stefan asked.

There was nothing to do but agree.

Damon's back pocket buzzed and he fished out his phone. Elena might be lost taking home the Daniels, who were apparently seventy-year-old party animals.

But it wasn't a text from Elena. It was from Clint.

Emergency CNN.

Damon's body went cold, his heart slowed to nothing. He stacked the chairs and stepped into the bar. The TV had been shut off in favour of music and Damon pulled the plug on the old juke box and found the remote behind the bar.

Damon had gotten used to having the news on as he worked, so immediately when the screen flickered it was tuned to CNN.

He turned up the volume just as Jeremy walked in the front door, looking tired. "Elena is parking the van," he said, but Damon barely heard him.

"Reports have been confirmed," the middle-of-the-night anchor said. "U.S. Senator Douglas Rawlings has been killed in Saudi Arabia. The details of his death haven't been released yet; we will update you with more information as it becomes available to us."

Damon immediately walked outside and called Clint, who picked up on the third ring.

"What the hell happened?"

"It was the woman. Charlotte Bassili."

Charlotte Bassili? The friend of an aide? The oh-daddy woman in Cook's Bay? With the robe?

"What was she doing in Yetarzikstan?"

"Rawlings wanted her. He wanted her everywhere."

"But why would she kill him?"

"She was an operative within the Arab Spring movement, supporting the rebels."

Holy hell. An operative?

"I knew we didn't vet her enough," Clint muttered.

"None of this makes sense, the Arab Spring doesn't have operatives, they have college students from…" Oh, damn.

The Egyptian accent she couldn't hide.

"But the senator supported the rebels. That is what the death threats were about." Damon still struggled to connect the scattered-to-hell-and-back dots.

"A cover. The senator was selling arms to the government."

Jesus Christ. "Selling weapons?" Damon asked. "To the government?" He had known Rawlings was dirty. But this…He had protected that man while he made backhanded deals with a government that bombed its own people. Women. Children.

He gagged, feeling the blood seep onto his own hands. He was dirty by association. Worse, in some people's eyes—in his own eyes—he would be an accessory. _What do I tell Stefan? Dad?_

Christ, Elena.

"Did you know?" he asked Clint when he could speak again.

"No. Not until this trip. It was pretty obvious he was into something over his head. Lots of locked door meetings."

"What was on the block?"

"Stingers, Stinger B's."

Missiles, shoulder-launched missiles, developed in Arizona. Senator Rawlings' home state.

"Is everyone else okay?" Damon asked, staring up at the dark sky. No stars tonight, nothing but clouds over a hazy moon.

"Yeah, we didn't even realize she had done anything until morning. He missed his wake-up call, and when we got in there she was gone. He was dead."

"What did she use?"

"Fatal injection. Cyanide."

"Who knows about the weapons?"

"It has leaked. I think she leaked it. Story will break huge on the morning news cycle. CIA, MI-6, they are all after her. This is a shit-storm of pretty global proportions."

"And you?"

"Deposition on the Hill tomorrow morning."

"So…you are done."

"I'm done."

It wouldn't be jail time, but who would be hiring a bodyguard whose last client was selling weapons to some serious bad guys and was then killed by a woman with a syringe?

Oh God, the world was a dirty place. And he was a guy who kept the dirty people safe.

His own blood was acid in his veins. "I would lie low if I were you. They will get around to you eventually," Clint said and then laughed. "I got to go."

"Yeah," Damon said. "Good luck."

"No amount of luck is getting me out of this shit hole."

Damon hung up and shoved his phone in his pocket.

Cool, calm, his heart in total lockdown, he started making plans. His name would no doubt come up in that deposition. He needed to get back to D.C.

If there was any fallout from this that landed on him, he needed to be far away from here.

From Elena.

There were footsteps behind him and he hung his head, looking at his hands. Big, wide, strong hands with calluses. His thumbnail was turning black from a run-in with a hammer. He had been building something here, with these hands.

 _And now,_ Damon thought, _I have to tear it down._

"Rawlings was who you were guarding when I found you in Cook's Bay," Jeremy said. It wasn't a question; he had connected the dots. Jeremy was too smart to be in the dark long.

Damon couldn't turn around, not yet. He nodded.

"What was he doing in Saudi Arabia?"

He looked up at the moon again, the clouds moving over it a veil being lifted away to reveal the pockmarks and scars on its surface. The shame was so deep, so thick in his skin, he felt sick.

"Selling arms to the Yetarzikstan government."

"Did you know?" Jeremy's voice was sharp as a knife and it slipped through Damon's skin, into his gut.

Finally, unable to delay it any longer, Damon turned to him. "Does it matter?"

"To my sister, I imagine. To me? No." Jeremy put his hands on his waist and no longer looked genial and friendly. He was stone cold. "This is bad, Damon."

"You think I don't know that?"

"Whatever you were thinking about her—"

"It is none of your business."

"You will get subpoenaed on this and if the media connect black-market arms dealing with a brutal dictator to my family, in any way, it pretty much becomes my business! My family is barely afloat after my father's bullshit, Elena's kidnapping, my own mistakes. We can't handle this. Elena cannot be mixed up in this!"

Damon didn't care about the family, but he agreed about Elena and felt the world come down around him, the ground collapsing under his feet. He had just gotten here. Just gotten to happy.

"Tell me, then," he said, because it was going to need to be made clear. The lines telling him where he could not go were going to have to be drawn for him, because after keeping himself away from her with white-knuckled force of will for ten years, he didn't have the strength to push Elena away anymore. Not by himself.

 _Remind me,_ he thought, _remind me who I really am._

"You have to break up with her right now," Jeremy said. "And I'm not kidding. You will ruin her life with this, Damon."

"I know," he said. And he did. He had always known it.

"I love that van. I love that van more than I have loved any van in the…" Elena approached, her smile fading when she saw Jeremy's and Damon's frowns. "What…what is wrong?"

Damon couldn't say it, not right away.

"You tell her," Jeremy said. "Or I will."

"Someone tell me!"

Damon looked right into her eyes, wished he could touch her. A last time.

"Damon," Jeremy said.

"A man I was hired to protect was murdered in Saudi Arabia," he said.

"Are your friends…" Elena glanced between Jeremy and Damon. "Are your friends okay?"

Jeremy gave Damon a hard look and then vanished back into the bar.

"What is wrong?" Elena asked. "You guys are freaking me out."

"The man was a senator and he was dealing weapons to the Yetarzikstan government."

Elena gasped. "Did you know?"

It would end, right now, if he said yes. If he looked her in the eye and said, Yes, I knew. She would never speak to him again. But he had just enough pride left to not want her believing the worst of him.

"Not about this…but I knew enough. He wasn't a good guy."

Elena bent, her hands on her knees as if she had been punched in the gut. Damon stepped toward her and she flinched away, so he stopped, useless.

"That was who you would take a bullet for?" Her voice was a pained whisper. "Men who deal in weapons? In death? The Yetarzikstan government—" She turned away. He knew what the Yetarzikstan government did. He had seen the pictures, too.

"Does your life mean so little to you?"

Damon didn't answer, he didn't know how to answer.

"I have to go," he finally said.

Her mouth fell open. "Just like that. You are gone?"

"I have to get back to D.C., my name will probably come up in the deposition."

"I will come with you."

For a moment the magnetic quality of her words, the power they had over him, nearly dropped him. But he shook it off.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I want to support you, how is that ridiculous?"

"Your family…your brother cannot be mixed up in this."

"Did he say something to you? Is that what this is about?"

"The story will be out tomorrow. You show up in Washington D.C. with me, a person named in the deposition, and it is over, Elena. What is your family going to do if we are together? I worked for the company that guarded a man who sold arms on the black market. It is political suicide. Your brother is running for Congress. If we are together we could bring your whole family down!"

"I'm not a kid anymore, Damon, and you don't work for them. I'm not scared. You didn't know."

"No one is going to believe that."

"I believe it."

"I knew he was shady. I knew he was cheating on his wife. Lying to the public, misappropriating funds. I knew that, Elena. And I didn't care."

Elena blinked.

"I didn't care about anything! Who I worked for, what I did. None of it mattered. Don't you know what am I? I'm the bad guy. You deserve better than me," he told her for the hundredth time.

"I know you, Damon." She took a step towards him.

"What about your plans? What about starting something from scratch? I get mixed up in this, it will poison your soil, Elena. None of your plants will grow. None. Stay away. Honestly, for your own good, just stay away." He strode towards the bar.

"I love you, Damon."

Her voice carried through the night, wrapped around his heart, and squeezed with such power he was light-headed.

The temptation of her, of believing her, of cleaving his dirty self to her innocence was unbearable but he knew who he was and what he was and how he had no business dreaming dreams of Elena.

"I told you that was a mistake. Face reality, Elena. We don't work."

Damon heard her gasp and he kept walking.

x x x

Damon was throwing his things into his duffel bag, packing up his laptop, looking for his damn keys. Elena never put them back in the same place. He was searching the living room when Stefan threw open the front door so hard it ricocheted off the wall.

"Just like that. You are gone?"

"I was never going to stay, Stefan."

"But I thought—"

"Whatever you thought is not my fault."

"Own up, man," Stefan yelled. "Own up to what you are doing here!"

"I'm passing time. I'm always just passing time here."

"I don't believe you. I don't believe that you don't care. I don't believe that you aren't gutted by what you just did to Elena. That it doesn't hurt you to leave here."

Stefan had no idea, he said the word gutted like he knew, but Damon's heart was down there bleeding on the asphalt.

"I will put the money in your account tomorrow."

"I don't care about the money, Damon!" Stefan yelled. "I want my brother! You give me money so you can walk in and out of my life without explanation, like you don't owe me anything."

It was painfully true. He was bribing the voters as sure as Rawlings did.

"Tell Dad I said goodbye, I will be back around when I can."

"No. I won't."

Damon looked at Stefan, who was glaring at him, his arms locked over his chest like he was just barely holding himself back from taking a swing.

"I used to think you were the bravest person I knew. The way you went after guys who called me names, wanting to be a Marine, the way you handled your injury—all of it. You were my hero, Damon. But now I see you are a coward. I won't do a coward's dirty work. And you can keep your money. I'm my own man—I don't need your payoff."

 _Fine,_ Damon thought as he watched Stefan walked towards the door. If that was what he wanted to think, it was a better thing for everyone.

But when Stefan got one foot out the door, Damon couldn't stop himself.

"Why are you acting like I'm just walking away?" he asked. "I'm trying to protect you. Elena."

"You think we need your protection? That Elena needs your protection? She would stand by you, man. All the way. If you would let her."

Damon nearly laughed. "Elena's biggest threat has always been herself, Stefan. Always. I'm just protecting her from herself."

x x x

Elena stormed back into the bar, where Jeremy was waiting for her. Her blood was on fire with grief and anger.

"You did that, didn't you?" she yelled. "You told him he had to leave. He had to break it off with me."

"He knew. I just said it out loud."

"Screw you, Jeremy. You were the one member of my family I liked."

"What choice is there, Elena?"

"For you, none. No choices, you don't get a say."

"The senator was selling weapons. Damon is going to get subpoenaed. Do you know what the media would do if you were mixed up with him?"

"Mixed up?" Elena shook her head, sad for her brother and his black-and-white heart. His right and wrong world. "I love him, Jeremy. I love him. Go. Go back to Atlanta. I will meet you there in a few days."

"He is leaving—"

"But he might come back. He might change his mind. And I want to be here."

Jeremy came close, almost overwhelming her, and looked her straight in the eye. "Listen to me, I barely had to say the word and he was packing his bags. Your fight is not with me, it is with him. I just gave him permission."

"Go," Elena said through her teeth.

 _I will be here when you get back._

Elena clung to his words from earlier. Clung to the idea that Damon would realize what he was throwing away.

 _He is going to be back,_ she thought. _He will be back._

x x x

Damon made it to D.C. just as the world exploded with news of Rawlings' death. Leaving Dulles, he saw on an airport television that "Charlotte" had committed suicide when surrounded by U.S. military forces in Cairo.

 _What a shitty way for Rawlings' wife to find out about her husband_ , he thought.

That he at one point had made a joke about her arriving to ruin the senator's affair as a good way to break up the monotony of his job now made Damon sick.

So selfish. Such a symbol of how far away he was from the person Elena had thought he was.

The man he had been in Mystic Falls.

It had been nice pretending. Pretending that he was nothing but useful. A cog in machinery that did good things, instead of destructive ones.

 _But you made your choice years ago,_ Damon reminded himself. He stepped out of the airport into a perfect September day in D.C. and hailed a cab to take him to his apartment off H Street. _You can't undo it. A month in Mystic Falls pretending to be someone you are not isn't going to erase the ten years before._

He watched the lights of the city pass, the Washington Monument a pillar in the distance. _You never made a choice,_ a voice inside his head said. _You scrambled to find a job, any job that would keep you out of your parents' house._

Any job that would point him in a new direction. That would give him work. A purpose. H had been twenty-five and was lost.

He paid the driver, too much probably, and grabbed his bags.

His apartment was small and sparse. No stuffed heads on the wall. No mould. No pictures of himself as a kid. There was a mountain bike, a television, a couch he didn't particularly like.

 _This is my home?_ Damon thought sadly as he glanced around the apartment. It felt so foreign. Everything in it, the Corps flag on the wall, the mugs in the cupboard, the books in the bedroom—none of it felt like his.

His home was miles away. His home was in Mystic Falls. The Salvatore boarding house was his house.

Damon dropped his bag in the doorway and what he had been avoiding for the last month, what he had been avoiding every time he looked into Elena's eyes, sunk into his bones.

He had been lost ten years ago and he had stayed lost.

For a moment—Elena in his arms, his brother's success swirling in the air, the beginning of something he had been building with his own hands reaching from floor to ceiling—he had found himself.

And he had been happy.

Damon shut the door behind him and forced himself into action. There was a list in his head…he rubbed his hands through his hair, groaning at the memories.

The rest of his life, he would never be able to make a list and not think of Elena. Such a mundane thing she had made her own. Her fingerprints were all over his life now, and he didn't know how to get them off.

First thing he had to do was find a lawyer. He made a few calls and set up a meeting for the next morning.

After unpacking his stuff, Damon sat in the dark on his uncomfortable couch and mourned the man he had been for the happiest month of his life.

And waited.


	17. Chapter 17

On Sunday morning, Stefan wasn't sure what to expect from Elena. She might have vanished in the night, perhaps left with her brother, who apparently had checked out of his room at the Town Hall Hotel at dawn.

He had gotten that bit of gossip at Rebekah's cafe when he went in for a coffee and to tell Rebekah what had happened.

Maybe Elena had trashed the Salvatore boarding house, or gone running after Damon.

But no. She was sitting on the sofa in the living room.

He had caught sight of her when he went to check on the house.

"Hey."

Elena turned. Her eyes were red and puffy. "Hey."

"Can I come in?"

"It is your house."

Stefan settled beside her and saw the small pile of Kleenex between her feet.

"You okay?"

"No. Not at all. You?"

"No." He handed her what was left of his coffee, but she waved it away. "I have to go tell Dad that Damon is gone."

Elena dropped her head. "I forgot about Giuseppe." She did a fancy flip thing with her hair and wiped away the tears before they fell, like she'd had several hours of practice at it already. "Do you want me to go with you?"

Stefan could have kissed her for asking. "Rebekah is coming."

"She is taking the morning off work?"

Stefan nodded.

Elena pushed against Stefan's shoulder and he liked it so he pushed back. "Must be love," she joked, but her voice cracked.

"Must be."

Emotions swarmed around them like mosquitoes circling a light and Stefan wished he could sit there and support her, give her comforting words, but he had watched his brother run away too many times. "I have spent so many years believing in him, wanting the best for him…"

"We can't stop." Her whisper was fierce and Stefan should have known, Damon had told him this woman grew gardens in the desert. "We can't give up now."

"I think…I think maybe he has disappointed me one too many times, Elena. I have no hope for him anymore. And I would hate to see you waste time inside this house waiting for him."

There was a knock on the door.

"I think it is Rebekah," Stefan said. He stood and put a hand on Elena's shoulder. "Come to the Grill with us."

"I will," she agreed, but she was lying; Stefan knew it. He had been in her position far too many times not to see it. She still had hope and she would wait here as long as the hope was alive. "Soon."

x x x

"Gone?" Giuseppe asked, glancing from Stefan to Rebekah. His shaking hand went back to the handle of his cane, the knuckles were white and swollen.

Maybe, Stefan thought, he should have worked his way into it a little better. Just blurting out that Damon had left might not have been his best game plan.

 _Goddamn you, Damon,_ he thought. All the anger he had shoved away for so long, it flooded him, and if Damon were there, he would beat the crap out of him.

"Dad, are you okay?" Stefan asked, putting his hand on the old man's back. Rebekah stood and got his father a glass of water.

Stefan had told her she didn't need to come over and talk to Giuseppe, but here she was.

And he was so damn thankful for her.

"Are you okay?" Rebekah asked, helping Giuseppe with the water.

"No! I'm not okay," Giuseppe said, pushing the glass away, splashing the water across the scarred Formica tabletop. He was sitting in his spot, in the gold plastic chair with the flecks of red that he always sat in.

 _We have all just stayed the same,_ Stefan thought. _We are frozen and I don't know what will unfreeze us._

"He just left?" Giuseppe asked, looking like a kid on Christmas morning whom Santa had forgotten.

"No. He didn't just leave. The company he works for is in some trouble."

"This about that senator that got killed?" Giuseppe asked. Giuseppe, like Damon, was a news junkie and CNN had been on since he woke up at seven.

Stefan nodded.

Giuseppe gasped. "My son was mixed up in that?"

Stefan caught Rebekah's eye over Giuseppe's head as he stared out the window. What can we do? she mouthed and he shrugged. He had no idea what to do.

"Call him," Giuseppe said. "Call my son and get him back here."

"Dad," Stefan murmured, "I don't think he will come."

"Tell him I had a heart attack. He will come back for that."

Stefan laughed. "You want me to lie?"

"Yes!" Giuseppe shouted, smashing his cane against the ground. "I want him to come back!"

"Dad, calm down."

"No! I won't calm down. My son is tied up with arms dealers. He leaves in the middle of the night—" He took a deep raspy breath, his hand left the cane and it clattered against the table as he grabbed at his arm.

"Dad?"

"I can't…" Giuseppe looked up, panicked and white-faced. A muscle under his eye twitched like a rabbit on the run. "I can't breathe."

His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over into Stefan's arms.

x x

Monday morning Damon sat in a dark room with the shades drawn, waiting for his phone to ring. Waiting for someone to show up at his door and hand him a subpoena.

He'd had a brief meeting with a lawyer, who told him not to worry. As a private contractor with very limited access to the senator, Damon would undoubtedly be subpoenaed but it wouldn't amount to much.

Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending how you looked at it—the only time his phone rang it was Stefan. Four times in the last twelve hours, but Damon didn't pick it up. He didn't have another round in him right now. Instead of putting down his phone, he scrolled through his recently called numbers and pulled up Elena's, but he didn't press the call button. Instead, he looked at the picture of her, smiling up at him over the edge of the sheet.

Damon would never forget that morning.

 _I dare you._

 _You don't think I will do it?_

 _I know you won't._

Her eyes dilated, her pink lips, swollen from the kissing they had been doing all morning, parted as she sucked air into her lungs. Slowly, her hands pushed the sheet down, revealing her collarbone, her breasts, the edge of her rib cage.

But the second Damon lifted his phone, she screamed and yanked the sheet over her head.

Damon turned the phone over, resting it facedown against the arm.

He had walked out of the garden, burned the bridges that might lead him back, he had no rights to regrets.

x x x

Elena resented the clock. She resented the way her heartbeat ticked with the second hand counting the moments Damon had been gone.

She resented the silence of Stefan's phone, in addition to her own, as they sat across from each other, Giuseppe's hospital bed between them.

Stefan hung up his phone and nearly collapsed in his chair.

"Still no answer?" It was one of the dumbest questions she had ever asked.

"Why do I care?" Stefan asked. "Why does it matter?"

Elena looked at Giuseppe, sleeping on the bed between them. His colour was better, but the heart attack had weakened him. He would recover, his meds needed to be updated and monitored more carefully. Someone was going to have to talk to him about mayonnaise, but he would live to argue another day.

She was leaving for Atlanta in the morning. But would be back here within the week, to see through the end of the shuttle roll-out, for a meeting in the town hall. To check in on Stefan, Rebekah and Lexi.

Her friends.

To be here when Damon came back.

Because sooner or later he would come to his senses and realize what he had walked away from.

Stefan stared up at the ceiling, his arms and legs flung out over the edges of the chair like he had been thrown into it with huge force. Elena felt the same way, like over the last two days every bone in her body, one by one, had been broken and ground into dust.

"Why is it so hard to get him to do the right thing?" Stefan asked.

"He thinks he is doing the right thing."

Despite the heartache, the disappointment, and the anger, Elena knew that. Damon thought he was protecting her. His family.

It was ten years ago all over again.

To be so angry, so hurt, and so in love all at the same time was nauseating.

"I will call him," Elena said. "He might pick up for me."

Stefan glanced at her, his eyes were black holes crammed full of pain.

"Thank you," he whispered.

She slipped out of the chair and into the hallway, painted what was probably supposed to be a soothing green but in the bright sunlight looked like pea soup.

Outside Mystic Falls Hospital, Elena found a quiet spot behind a shrub and past the standing ashtray. She stood against the wall and let the breeze wash over her. The rains last night made the air feel damp, the smell of the river was thick.

 _I like the smell of the river,_ Damon had said one night, his hand stroking her arm. _It reminds me of my mother. I never figured that out before._

After a couple of deep breaths, she called Damon.

 _I wonder if he deleted that photo._ Elena thought about the failed dirty picture that came up on his phone every time she called.

The memory of his laughter was poison.

Damon answered on the second ring.

"Elena."

Her eyelids fluttered shut from the sharp slide of pain between her ribs.

 _I told you that would be a mistake. Face reality, Elena. We don't work._

"Elena, are you okay?"

"Your father had a heart attack." Saying it, despite having lived it for the last two days—despite having answered Stefan's frantic phone call and rushing to the hospital and standing in the waiting room, stroking Stefan's shoulder, holding Rebekah's hand, despite all of that—it didn't seem real, not real like this, like her face was pressed up against the glass around a Klieg light.

Elena bit her lip and pressed the back of her head hard against the brick wall.

"What?" Damon's voice was a strangled bark.

"Your dad had a heart attack Sunday morning. He is at Mystic Falls Hospital."

"Is he…"

"He is stable. But he is weak." _He is sick, Damon. Your father is sick. And you can't keep walking in and out of his life like you have all the time in the world._ Elena was so tempted to shout these words out to him but she didn't.

"Stefan—"

"Is losing his mind. You should have answered his calls."

His silence was telling. _Damn you, really. You are such a coward_ , she thought. _It is what you do, Damon. Every time there is a bump in the road, you will run away._ And just like that she cut the ribbon on her dream of him coming back. For her.

"I'm leaving," Elena said. "I will be gone tomorrow morning. Come back, Damon. Be with your family. You won't…you won't have to see me."

She hung up before Damon could say any more and pressed the phone to her mouth so hard her teeth cut her lips. And when the tears spilled over them, it stung.

Eyes burning, lips stinging, her heart bleeding, Elena went home. Not home, not ever her home, she corrected. It was a boarding house. She went back to the Salvatore boarding house to pack.


	18. Chapter 18

The first days of basic training on Parris Island, one of the hardest things some guys had to figure out was how to remain calm with the DIs screaming in their faces. It was hard to keep all the adrenaline and fear locked down. Damon stood on those famous yellow footprints in front of the receiving barracks with that instinct already ingrained. He could slow down his heart rate, manage the flood of adrenaline through his bloodstream.

It was a good skill to have.

Never more so than on the trip back to Mystic Falls. It helped him get through repacking his bag and boarding a plane. Like an automaton, he rented a car when he arrived at the Mystic Falls airport, drove through the late afternoon sunlight, following the smell of the river all the way home.

Damon took the second exit and without thought got to the hospital where Lillian had given birth to Stefan, and where she died years later, wasted and ravaged by cancer.

The visitor parking lot was in the back and he found the spot he liked in the far corner, under the maple. The engine died when he turned the key.

But he couldn't get out of the car.

 _Come on,_ Damon told himself, _get out of the car._

His hands were shaking. He turned them over to stare at the backs of them. The palms.

He remembered lying in the Afghanistan dust choking on blood and blast residue. His hands shook then. It had been shock.

His hands were shaking now.

 _Calm it down. Calm it down._

 _Your father had a heart attack. You have to see him. He needs you._

But the deeper he breathed, the worse it got. There were shiny disks at the edge of his vision and those deep breaths couldn't get enough air. He braced his hands against the steering wheel and stared up at the car's grey fabric ceiling. There was a cigarette burn near the dome light.

Damon focused on it and fought passing out.

His heart rate was out of control, sweat dripped down his back, his armpits. He was worse than the new recruits on Parris Island.

The knock on his window nearly sent him right into the roof.

Outside his car stood Rebekah, wincing. Sorry, she mouthed.

Damon gave her what he thought was a smile, but he felt sick.

Carefully, so he wouldn't fall at her feet, he got himself out of the car. His legs were jelly.

"Hey, Damon," Rebekah said, in the subdued sad way of people facing huge grief with grace.

 _Oh shit,_ Damon thought and his breathing sawed through his chest. _Oh God, he is dying. Giuseppe is dying_. It was all over Rebekah's face, the weary dignity with which she looked at him.

"Damon?" Rebekah grabbed his arm. "Are you okay?"

Damon shook his head, words never one of his strong suits.

"Stefan sent me out here to look for you."

"He is pissed." It wasn't a question. Of course Stefan was pissed.

"He is sad and scared," Rebekah told him, walking with him across the parking lot. It was September and the wind had a cool edge today. Rebekah was wearing only a pink cardigan sweater over her T-shirt and Damon slipped out of his coat to put it over her shoulders.

Rebekah stopped in her tracks, her head down.

"Rebekah?"

She shook her head, and when she looked up at him, tears filled her eyes. "You are a good man, Damon. And you need to start acting like it. Stefan is your brother. You hurt Stefan any more than he is already hurting and I swear to God…"

Damon pulled the coat tighter around her, arranging the hood so the wind didn't smack it into the side of her face.

"You are good for him," he whispered.

"We are good for each other," she said.

Oh, how amazing that sounded. How powerful. That two people could be made into better versions of themselves just by virtue of being near the other. Better together than apart.

 _I had that._ Damon thought of Elena's lists and the feel of her body against his. The way she asked him twenty times a day what he thought. _I had that and I blew it._

"Come on," Rebekah said and pulled him back into movement toward the very familiar front doors and the heartache inside.

Giuseppe's room was on the third floor, the pea green floor. Each floor had a different colour. When Lillian had Stefan, she was on the yellow floor. When she was dying of cancer, the blue.

Damon walked down the hallway, Rebekah's stride matching his, their footsteps a lonely echo in the quiet hallway. Rebekah stopped in front of the half-shut door of room 112. Damon could hear Stefan's voice inside the room as he read Giuseppe the sports page.

The ground shifted again, strange how it kept doing that, and Damon put his hand against the wall so he wouldn't go face-first into the floor.

"Have you slept since you left?" Rebekah asked. Inside the room, Stefan's voice stopped like it had been cut with a knife.

Damon ignored the question and instead asked his own. The question that had been burning him since Elena's phone call.

"If I hadn't left like that…would he…" He couldn't say it. _Was this my fault? It must be my fault._

Rebekah's face folded for a moment, sympathy and grief making her melt, but then she pulled it all together somehow and looked at him with firm eyes and narrowed lips.

"That is bullshit, Damon. You didn't cause this heart attack. The doctors said it was only a matter of time—"

"But I—"

Suddenly Stefan was there standing behind Rebekah, his hand on her shoulder. "You didn't cause it, Damon. Believe it or not, you don't have that kind of power."

Damon ignored the hidden message in his brother's words and just soaked him in for a second. It had been barely three days since he left. Not even. And yet he had missed his little brother.

 _All this time,_ he thought, _all this time I have wasted._

Damon took a deep breath and put a hand to his chest as if he could keep his heart from beating right out of his rib cage.

He opened his mouth to say it, to tell his brother that he had missed him, that he loved him, but the words were so late, he feared they were worthless.

"You look like shit," Stefan said.

Damon nodded. "Can I?" He pointed inside the door and Stefan stepped closer to Damon, put his hand on his shoulder as if to hold him up, and maybe that was what Damon needed. To be held up by his brother. Because it felt good.

"He looks bad," Stefan said. "But he is okay. It was a small heart attack, but because of how weak he was, the situation with the meds really hurt him. Doctors say if we take care of him, he takes his meds right, he will recover. But he is old, Damon. Weak."

Damon nodded, unable to speak.

"He is sleeping off and on, so I don't know if he will wake up," Stefan said. "Don't…don't expect him to."

After a long moment, Stefan stepped back into the room and Damon followed.

 _He looks bad didn't cover it_. Damon stumbled, his jelly legs unable to hold him up. Giuseppe looked dead. Grey and thin. Ashen. Tubes everywhere. His body…oh God, he was so small. His rib cage barely lifted the sheet.

Stefan was suddenly beside him, his arm over his shoulders.

"You need to sit," Stefan said and Damon nodded, slipping sideways into a chair beside the bed. The sports page was leaning against Giuseppe's legs and there was a dent in the blankets where Stefan must have had his feet up.

"I will…ah…I will let you have a few minutes," Stefan said and gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. He would have joined Rebekah lingering in the doorway but Damon grabbed his hand.

"Stay." The word came out garbled, but he felt Stefan tense.

"You want me to stay?"

"I want…" Damon licked his dry lips and forced himself to stay planted in this moment. To open himself up to all the things he couldn't prevent or control or stop.

Caring or not caring wouldn't stop his father from dying.

It didn't stop the pain of Elena not being there.

All of his efforts to keep the pain away had been for nothing.

He hurt. Everything hurt.

"I have wasted so much time," Damon said. "I don't want to waste any more."

Stefan and Rebekah shared some indecipherable look.

"I will go grab us some coffees," Rebekah said and Stefan kissed her as she left.

But then he walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down in another chair. Damon handed him the sports page and Stefan took it, propped his feet up on the bed.

Damon sat there and shook. He just shook.

 _I want this,_ he thought. _I want this and it will go away and it will be awful. It will hurt. But I want it anyway._

The pain he forecasted, the pain that was real and now, slid into him, but the pleasure was there, too. Pleasure that his brother was here. That his father was here and that there were still minutes and hours and days ahead of him to try and make up for all the minutes and hours and days that had been wasted.

Elena was a burning thought in his head. The time he had wasted with her, the moments he had squandered. The love he had rejected.

 _I want it. It might hurt, but I want that, too. I don't care about what people think. I don't care about rules anymore._

"The Saints suck," Stefan said, opening the paper. "That was what I was reading about. Their suck defence."

"I'm sorry, Stefan," Damon said, staring at the frayed edge of his brother's jeans.

 _You can do better,_ he told himself. _You have to do better._

Damon lifted his burning eyes to his brother's wide ones and said: "I love you. Since you were born I have loved you and I never really knew how to do that. How to love someone without them going away. So, I just tried to keep you safe. Tried to make sure that nothing happened to you because it would have…it would have killed me. And then when you were a man and didn't need me…I guess I didn't know what to do. How to be a brother to you anymore. So, I let it be about money and odd jobs around the bar. And I messed it up. A million times I messed it up. I was mean to you and all you ever wanted was to be my brother and I can't believe…" Damon shook his head, his voice a whisper. "I'm sorry."

Stefan was silent, his mouth agape. That Damon knew he had done the right thing, saying the right thing took the sting out of foolishness.

"Those are the most words you have ever said to me," Stefan finally said. Damon shrugged, tried to smile, but he thought he might cry.

"I'm sorry, too," Stefan said. "All I have ever wanted was to have you around. To know where you were and if you were okay. I don't need you to live here, but…I need to have you in my life. I deserve that."

Damon nodded. He tried to swallow, but his throat was thick.

"I love you, Damon," Stefan said and Damon closed his eyes against the bitter sting of tears.

Giuseppe's fingers twitched on the yellow cotton blanket pulled up over his chest. There was a heart-rate monitor and an IV; it was awkward getting his own hand around Giuseppe's much smaller one. But Damon did it.

 _It is okay to want more,_ his father had said just a few weeks ago.

"I want everything you had," Damon whispered to his father. The job that was satisfying. A wife he loved. Children. Community. He was tired of living cold and alone in an exile of his own making. "I want it all."

"What are you doing?" Stefan asked.

"Telling the old man he has to get better so I can go get Elena."

Stefan blinked and then smiled, the spark coming back in his eyes. "What about the subpoena?"

"I haven't gotten it yet. If I do…I guess we will handle it. Together."

"Well, then we better get you out of here." Stefan snapped open the paper and winked at Damon. "Listen up, Dad. The Saints have traded Drew Brees—"

"We don't need to give him another heart attack," Damon said, stretching out in the chair, his hand still wrapped around his father's.

"Good point," Stefan said. "You want to sing or something?"

"Sing? No…what…Who sings?"

"They do that in movies."

"This isn't a movie."

"Clearly. What do you want to do?"

"I could teach you to play chess."

"I would rather eat my hat."

"Fine. Tell me about Rebekah."

"Not in front of Dad, Damon."

"You are a pervert."

"I'm dating her to get to her coffee supplier."

"I knew it," Rebekah said, walking into the room, a tray of coffees in her hand. "I never should have trusted you." She twisted one paper cup out and handed it to Stefan with a kiss.

"I told you." Giuseppe's rough voice turned all the heads his way.

"You are awake." Stefan came to his feet. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." Giuseppe's eyes were wet and so, in fact, were Damon's as his father squeezed his hand. "Told you it would work."

"What would work?" Stefan asked.

"Telling him I had a heart attack."

Stefan flopped back in his chair and Rebekah started laughing.

Beneath his hand, Damon felt his father laugh and he felt his own body grow—his capacity for pain, for pleasure, for happiness and grief expanded.

 _Now I just need Elena_.


	19. Chapter 19

"You don't look good," Miranda said, assessing Elena's reflection in the mirror as hair and make-up did their best to turn the prodigal daughter into a Gilbert.

"Perhaps a little more blush," Elena said to the make-up artist with a smile.

"Are you feeling all right?" Miranda asked, running a finger over her own eyebrows as if any stray hair had the audacity to stick out.

Her mother was not interested in all the ways she felt bad and there were far larger problems in the Gilbert family than her broken heart.

"Why didn't anyone tell me Jeremy was married?"

Elena was still in shock from the news. Her brother. Married. In some shotgun ceremony to a former model of all things.

Miranda turned away, her lips pressed tight. Obviously Jeremy's marriage was a sore subject for her.

 _And I thought my life was dramatic!_ Elena thought.

"We thought he would have told you when he went to get you out of Mystic Falls."

"Well, he didn't. Who is she? Where did they meet? Does he love her?"

Miranda lifted her hand, an old signal to be quiet.

"Those are all questions only your brother can answer."

Miranda sniffed and then sat down in the club chair next to the bar, her attention studiously out the window. Atlanta was a city of lights out there. A kingdom for her brother.

And his wife?! Elena felt like she had left Mystic Falls and slipped down a rabbit hole.

"Have you seen the speech?" Miranda asked.

"Of course. Jeremy's staff is very thorough." Elena was not sure if she was reading the cues right, but Miranda seemed—affronted. "Have you seen the speech?"

"I have not," she said, picking a stray piece of fluff from the hem of her red suit. "Apparently, my input is no longer necessary."

"He was going to grow up sometime."

Her eyes had glacier level coldness as they slid over her. "And you?" Miranda asked. "Are you going to grow up sometime?"

Oh, to stand up, tear off the stifling blue suit that didn't fit and she didn't like and run away from her mother's disdain for her, for everything that was important to Elena was a powerful temptation.

But Elena was here to stand her ground, build herself something from scratch. And her mother's disapproval no longer had any influence over her. She had, after all, survived worse things than her mother's withering disdain.

"I'm taking over the foundation," she said.

From the corner of her eye Elena saw her mother briefly hang her head, as if her disappointments were just too much to bear.

"You understand I am on the board and I won't have you devoting all of my mother's money to foreign aid when there is so much need here."

For a moment, Elena actually felt fondness for her mother, beneath the hard political shell, there was the beating heart of a public servant. It just didn't show itself very often.

"I'm working on a community-based, shuttle-service for underserved senior citizens."

Miranda blinked. "That is something we can discuss," she finally said.

"And we will," Elena agreed, biting back her smile in the mirror. "But I should make it clear, I don't need your approval. The deal was, if I stayed in the States, I could manage the foundation."

"That was years ago."

"I'm growing up, Mum. This is what you wanted."

There was a knock on the front door to the suite.

"Come in," Elena said, and Jeremy poked his gleaming head in the door.

"Hey!" He said and walked in. Everything about him was right. His hair, the suit, the firm but pleasant look in his eye. He was both approachable and somehow beyond reproach.

Elena looked away, still angry at him. Damon was the one who left, but if Jeremy hadn't shown him the door, she might have had a chance to persuade him to stay, to work through the scandal together.

 _Or are you just telling yourself that, because that makes you feel better. You know he would run away from you because he wanted to protect you and your family._

"You look really uncomfortable in that suit," Jeremy said, trying to tease her.

"I have been wearing cut-offs for three weeks. Any suit was going to look uncomfortable." He touched her hand and smiled at her for a moment.

"Thank you," he said, "for being here. I feel better with you around."

Suddenly, Elena realized just how lonely her brother seemed, surrounded on every side, three deep by people he only let in so far. But there was no one on the inside.

No one for him to show his secret hopes to.

And marriage certainly didn't seem to make him any happier.

She squeezed his hand, as sad for him as she was angry. "I'm happy to be here. But we have some things we need to talk about."

"The election—?"

"No, Jeremy! Your wife."

"Mum, can you give us a second. In fact…" he made eye contact with the hair and make-up staff who quickly disappeared out the door.

"You want me to leave?" Miranda asked.

"I need to talk to Elena." He sounded so firm, so firm that Miranda didn't argue. She lifted her chin and walked right past them.

"She is having a bad night," Elena whispered, watching as she left a trail of ice in her wake.

"How so?"

"Both of her kids have grown up and don't need her anymore."

Jeremy laughed. "If only that were true. Sadly, I still need her."

"Why didn't you tell me you got married?"

Jeremy rubbed a hand over his mouth and Elena was reminded of him in that hospital in Nairobi. Her brother kept so many secrets, so many pieces of himself tucked away out of the public eye, she wondered if he knew who he was anymore.

"Truthfully, I didn't know how to tell you. It is not real. It is political. The whole thing."

"Who is she?"

"A mistake, I'm trying to make right."

Elena flinched at the language. To be called a mistake? What a horrible thing. And it reminded her of that year after Damon, after the Vice Presidency was lost, when all those rumours surfaced about dad.

"Is this about Dad?"

"No."

"Because his mistakes are his own. All of them, Jeremy. That is not anything you need to make right."

His handsome features curved again into that political smile indicating he was done talking about this and Elena felt very keenly sorry for his new wife.

Jeremy knew how to freeze a person out.

"When can I meet her?"

"Tonight. Later, I imagine. But, that is not why I'm here. Look, I wasn't sure if I should tell you but I thought, if you found out, you might lose it." He sighed. "Damon is here."

"Damon?" One time when Elena was a kid the Gilbert family started to get heat for being out of touch with the real world. Miranda didn't buy groceries. Jeremy and Elena had tutors and nannies and private school educations that cost more than most people made in their lives. In an effort to combat this perception, her mother had arranged a photo op at a county fair for the family. All to prove to people who would never really believe it that they were a normal family. Who did normal things.

So, as a normal family, Miranda filled the fair with pre-screened extras (there was no way she could actually have the real-life public there) and told Elena to look like she was having fun.

Elena had almost immediately found The Drop Zone. She sat strapped into a ring of seats that climbed up to the top of a very high pole and paused there a second before dropping into a free fall to the bottom, where hydraulics caught the seat and returned her to safety.

The knowledge that Damon was here made her stomach feel the same way. Like the world beneath her had vanished.

"Where?" she asked.

"He is outside the kitchen staff door. My guys have stopped him, but he wants to come in."

"Why?" she breathed. Her fingers were in knots in her lap.

"I imagine for the same reason you look so tortured." Jeremy ducked his head to look into her face. "Are you okay?"

 _No,_ Elena thought. _No, I'm not._ But she smiled, because she was a Gilbert, and among Gilberts and that was what a Gilbert did.

"Fine."

There was another knock on the door and Jeremy's campaign manager poked his head in. "We need to get going."

Jeremy nodded and the manager disappeared. Her brother was so good at that, making people vanish.

Elena was not. Wasn't even interested in having that skill. Jeremy pushed people away, she gathered them close.

And she wouldn't change that about herself.

 _Why is Damon here?_ she thought. _Has something happened to Giuseppe?_ She pushed away the idea that he was here for her. Not because she didn't believe it, she did—as foolish, as dangerous a thought as that might be—she just couldn't do anything about it at the moment.

"I'm sorry for what I said to him in Mystic Falls," Jeremy said. "And if he is who you have chosen I will support you. It is time the Gilberts supported one another. Do you want me to let him in?"

Elena put her hand on Jeremy's arm. "Let him in."

Jeremy nodded. "We need you out there in ten minutes."

"Then you better send in Dora," she said and pointed to the fat curlers in her hair, "because I have no idea what to do with these."

x x x

Damon stood along the back wall of the hotel ballroom nursing soda water with lime. He had one eye on the exits, a habit that would probably never die, and his other eye on Elena.

It had taken him a second when the cool brunette stepped up to the stage wearing a blue suit and red high heels; he hadn't recognized her.

Damon nearly dropped his drink when Elena started talking.

If he hadn't been in love with her before the speech, he was now. Now, in fact, he was in ruins.

Elena had been funny and sobering in turns, she had talked about public service as if it were a privilege.

"If we all just did it," she said, "we would know how addicting kindness can be. How habit forming helping someone is. My brother understands this and that is why he will make a great congressman."

When she was done and the polite applause filled the ballroom, Damon had put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Seriously out of place, but what was the point of pretending. He had driven six hours to get here and it was worth every moment.

Elena had stepped down the wide stairs at the side of the stage and into the knot of press that had been standing there. Miranda joined her, smiling as if standing arm in arm with her daughter was something she had done a million times.

Elena stepped away from the reporters, but one dodged forward, getting in her path, and Elena reeled back, alarm flickering briefly across her face.

Damon pushed off the wall and crossed the room, setting his drink down on a table as he walked.

"I have answered all the questions I'm going to answer regarding Somalia. Tonight is about my brother," Elena was saying. "And about the future."

"But April Young alluded to sexual—"

"She is done." Damon stepped in between the reporter and Elena. The reporter opened his mouth as if to argue but one look at Damon's face and he stepped back. Damon walked forward towards the closed doors on the other side of the room, away from where the press stood. The women followed, he could feel them at his back, a solid wall of ice and fire. He heard Miranda greeting people as they walked and he slowed down his pace, until finally they were out the side door into the staging area for the kitchen.

There were only waiters and trays there.

"Are you okay?" Damon asked Elena, taking in her pale face. The pale remainders of the bruises were covered with makeup.

"What are you doing here?" Miranda asked.

"Mum—"

"Did Jeremy invite you?"

Damon lifted his badge; he hadn't been invited but Miranda didn't need to know that. Beside him Elena gave no clue of how she was feeling. He couldn't tell if she was angry or hurt or happy. The urge to throw her over his shoulder and get her out of this place was hard to control.

"I would think that our professional relationship with you was over the moment you kidnapped my daughter. And if you are here expecting payment, you can forget it. We owe you nothing."

Damon smiled, more teeth than happiness, and he was pleased when she stepped backward with one foot. "You are right, you owe me nothing. As for kidnapping your daughter, if she said the word I would take her so far away you would never see her again. You would never judge her. You would never find her wanting. And you would never ever get the privilege of seeing your amazing daughter reach a potential so far beyond your capabilities you can't even imagine it. In fact," Damon said, putting his hands on his hips, "I might not even wait for her to say the word. I might do it anyway, because you have never deserved the loyalty she has given you."

"Damon…" Elena whispered and pressed her hand to his arm. It was an electric shock even through his suit and the shirt beneath it.

"I need to go back outside," Miranda said, lifting her chin. If her hair moved, he imagined she was tossing it back. "Elena, you can do what you want, you always have, but for the sake of your brother I would ask that you remember that tonight is important."

She pushed her way out the door and Damon was left alone with Elena.

His bravery of a few moments ago vanished. It was so easy for him to stick up for Elena, to demand for her, what she deserved.

Not as easy to stand here and do the same for himself.

"What are you doing here, Damon?"

Damon was sweating. How strange. And he was breathing through his nose like a bull.

 _So much agitation,_ Elena thought. If his words hadn't sent her hope soaring, this…distress would.

But first she had to be sure—if he was here for any other reason than what she suspected, she would fall on the floor in pieces.

"Is Giuseppe okay?"

"Fine," he said. "Well, better. He is bossing us around."

Elena sighed, her hope a kite on a string that was running wildly through her hands.

"The subpoena?" she asked.

"Never came. It might still, but…we will deal with that as it comes."

We. Oh, the worlds she built on top of that word. In an instant she built a fantasy so bright, so compelling, she had to look away or be ruined.

"I can't take any more heartbreak from you, Damon," Elena whispered. She clenched her hands together to keep from reaching for him. Her words ran over themselves as if fleeing a fire. "I have loved you since I was seventeen and—"

Damon grabbed her hands and pressed them to his lips. It hurt, the pleasure of it, and the ecstatic relief of his touch after the last week made her gasp.

"I have no idea what I have done to deserve you," he said against her fingers, his eyes pressed closed. "But I love you. I love you so much, Elena."

Elena pulled her fingers away as if his words had burned her. And they had, because she wanted to believe this. But how many times could one woman get hurt by the same man?

"I was so scared of losing you I never let myself have you. Even while I was falling in love, I kept reminding myself that it wouldn't last. That you would at some point come to your senses and leave—"

"You left," Elena said. "You did. I would never have left."

"I know…I know you wouldn't have and I love that about you."

"You don't think you deserve me."

"I'm working on that."

"This isn't a joke, Damon. I want to be happy and I can't be with a man who doubts his worth all the time. It is exhausting and painful."

"I have made a lot of mistakes. A lot. Because I didn't care. Because I was scared. Because of all the mistakes I have made, so I stick with the rules. My dump rules. Care less, hurt less." He sighed. "But I'm wrong. There are no rules in love and relationship."

There was a brief silence.

"I'm never going to be perfect," Damon added. "But I want to be the man I was with you, I want to help you work on your dream. I want to be a cog in machinery that does good, because that is what I deserve. I deserve to be happy and you…you make me so happy."

Elena wanted to believe him, but she had visions of partnership, and partnership didn't have an escape hatch.

"Do you think I will leave you?"

"No. I don't. And if you ever do leave, it doesn't matter. I will find you. I will always find you. I am yours, Elena. My family, my home, my body, my heart—all of it, everything I am, is yours."

 _Too much,_ Elena thought as tears filled her eyes. This was too much happiness for one person; her instinct to hoard was overrun and she had to just let it be.

She had to let her love and her happiness sit right there in his hands, because she no longer had control of it.

"That works out pretty well," she said, reaching up to touch his beautiful, beloved face; Damon closed his eyes and leaned into her palm. "Because I am yours."

He crushed her to him and she crushed him back and their kiss was a promise of forever. It was a vow of faith and hope.

"I love you so much," she breathed across his lips and he breathed the same across hers.

Damon leaned back and stroked her hair, the silly big curls that made her feel like a Barbie. "You look beautiful."

"I look like I'm playing dress-up."

He glanced down at her suit, the red heels.

Damon turned his head sideways, still looking at the shoes.

"You like those?" She cocked her heel, showing them off. The skin of his neck turned red and he nodded.

"Let's go." Thinking of the fastest way up to her suite and the big king-size bed there, Elena grabbed his hand but he didn't move. "Damon?"

"I'm here, honey," Damon said. "I will always be here. But you are building something today. From scratch. And you made a promise to your family." He pointed toward the ballroom and all the people in there ready to give their money to Jeremy's campaign.

Damon's pride, his belief in her was immutable and the only way to accept such a compliment was to be worthy of it.

"Come with me," Elena whispered.

"Where else would I go? You are my ride home." He tucked her hand into his elbow and pushed open the door.

"You have two hours," Damon whispered into her ear, his breath lighting her up from the inside. "And then I'm taking you upstairs and making a mess of you."


	20. Chapter 20

**Epilogue**

 _Three months later_

"Well, Caroline…" Elena tucked her phone into her shoulder and handed Damon more white lights. Their breath fogged in the December air. "…that is fantastic news."

"I thought you would like to hear."

"I appreciate it," she said. "Go enjoy the holiday with your family." Elena hung up and tucked the phone in her pocket.

"What happened?" Damon asked. He was using a staple gun to attach the fabric to the cedar of the gazebo he had finished building just in time for the Christmas celebrations.

It was built and dedicated to the memory of Lillian Salvatore.

"We have got donations to get vans and drivers in three more cities. And the mobile clinic has been approved in, wait for it..."

"New Orleans?"

"New Orleans."

Damon jumped down from the ladder onto the hardwood floor he had put down with his own two hands and pulled her in for a kiss. "Congratulations, honey."

"Well, Caroline did it, really."

"Yeah, because you haven't racked up the frequent flier miles going down to talk to Public Health in New Orleans."

"The mobile clinic idea was yours," Elena said, hugging him as hard as she could.

"You would have had it sooner or later." He kissed her cheek and then, evidently not finding that satisfying enough, cupped her cheeks and pressed a long, slow, sweet kiss to her lips.

"Get a room!" Stefan yelled as he stepped into the gazebo and dropped a box of fake cedar garland on the floor. "Or at least make it legal," he said and winked as he walked back out to go help Rebekah work on the holiday decorations outside her café.

"They made up?" Damon asked as they both watched Stefan cross the road.

"They are working it out," Elena said. "Their first big fight was bound to be a doozy. Rebekah is independent."

"And my little brother is a hard-headed son of a bitch," Damon said. "I just hope he doesn't ruin it."

"He hasn't so far, and Rebekah has agreed to move in."

"That is a step," Damon said. "What about you?"

"What about me what?" Elena asked, pulling giant armfuls of red ribbons from a box. "What the hell are we supposed to be decorating? This is enough to cover the entire Town Hall."

"Hey," Alaric Saltzman, Damon's new employee, stepped up to the gazebo. He had to duck under the rafters he was so tall. In secret and never to Damon and Stefan, she and Rebekah called him "the Hot Viking." He had short brown hair that was gelled on the top and every time he turned his bright blue eyes towards Elena she felt silly. "What is next?" he asked, his accent making him sexy.

Honestly, the man was potent.

"Head on over to Town Hall," Damon said. "They need some help setting up the mile markers for the 5k race."

Alaric nodded and winked at Elena, who tried very hard not to giggle.

"Do you have a crush on my employee?" Damon asked when Alaric walked away.

"No," Elena told him with a straight face.

"You are lying."

"I am."

Damon tugged on her hand, pulling her into his arms. "It is a good thing I know you are mine."

"Yes, it is a good thing," Elena said, kissing the skin just above his collar.

"But…" He sighed. "I'm thinking I need to make it more official."

Elena went still—the blood in her veins, the thoughts in her head, everything stopped. This was it. The proposal.

Reading her expression, Damon frowned. "Did Dad tell you—"

"No. No. Just…do the whole thing, whatever you were planning."

"My father can't keep a secret—"

"Damon!" Elena shrieked and pinched him.

"I want to build a home and I looked into that land by the river…"

"Where you and Stefan built the pier?" Damon nodded and she felt tears filling her eyes. This was happening, it was really happening.

"It is for sale."

Elena gasped. "Buy it!"

"I figured you would say that so I did." His grin was boyish and sweet and she couldn't love him more. She was bursting with it right now. She had to bounce on her toes just so she wouldn't start screaming, Yes! Yes! at the top of her lungs.

"You going to let me do this?" Damon asked, knowing her so well.

"Hurry," she breathed. "I'm freaking out."

Damon reached into his back pocket and Elena groaned with excitement. Flapping her hands in front of her face, to stop the tears. She wanted to see everything.

"Dad gave this to me last week," he said and opened his hand. "It was my mum's."

Elena thought she was going to pass out. Through tears, she couldn't wave away, she watched him go down on one knee and no part of that felt right so she went down on her knees, too.

"I'm trying to propose here, Elena."

"I know. I know. Let's just do it this way."

His smile was tender and indulgent and happy.

"I want you to be my wife. I want to be your husband, your partner, the father of your kids. Marry me," he whispered. "Please."

"Yes. Of course. Yes."

The gold was hot as it slipped over her finger, as if it was adding its voice to the celebration, and the small diamond winked in the sunlight.

"It is not much but I thought you would like—"

Elena shut him up with her lips, tackling him to the ground. "It is perfect," she whispered. "It is the most perfect thing in the world."

"No, honey," Damon said, holding her, "we are."

 _THE END_


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